THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 1922. THE PRINCE'S TOURS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18121, 20 June 1922, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 1922. THE PRINCE'S TOURS.

After much travel the Prince of Wales is reaching the end of another tour, in which as heir to the throne ? he has . made himself personally j known to the citizens of important j portions of the Empire. His per-! sonal triumph in India, Burma, Japan, and other Eautern countries has been no less decisive than previously in Canada, the United j States, New Zealand and Australia, j He has circled the globe. He has mingled with people of many dif- I ferent creeds and colours, nation- i alitiea and customs. So invariably has the Prince gained the goodwill I and strengthened the loyalty of < every Dominion or colony he has visited that the term " an Ambassa idor of Empire," coupled with his j name, has become a truism. He has travelled foreign lands, and again the charm, the naturalness and the unaffected ease of his bearing has enabled him to carry all before him In India the supposedly disaffected, overwhelming manifestations of loyalty have been the rule, with no j untoward incidents on record. In all his journeyings he has never! spared himself. New Zealand, with | lively recollections of the Prince's tour through the Dominion, needs no reminder of that. Everywhere eagerly interested, always ready to fall in with the arrangements made for him, he has established hi 3 reputation for saying and doing the right thing so firmly that it never can be shaken. The consequence j has been the birth and the growth of a feeling of personal loyalty toward, and personal affection for, the heir to the throne, the importance of which can hardly be overemphasised. For a truth which cannot too often be told is the one ! declaring that the bonds most firmly binding the widely-scattered nations of the Empire are the bond 3 of sentiment. Light enough never to irk, these bonds nevertheless have proved strong in the face* of I peril, and if the right sentiment be properly fostered will be found effective against the strongest disruptive forces. Sentiment so widespread among i countries, many of which have tho loosest of links uniting them, must have a point of fociis. Trinidad or Malta may be conscious of few ties between themselves, or between either and New "Zealand. If all three acknowledge a common loyalty to the British throne, the visible symbol of Empire unity, they are at once upon common ground. Constitutional monarchy is generally agreed to be a governmental system peculiarly suited to the British temper. There is abundant proof that it is the institution best fitted to head a commonwealth of nations like the Empire. Yet where academic arguments on such lines might avail nothing, the intimate personal touch supplied by the visits the Prince has made can serve as a mighty power for good. It was the understanding of such feelings which led to the first proclamation of the heir to England's throne as the Prince of Wales. In the fourteenth century Edward I. presented to the followers of Llewellyn, defeated but not subdued, his heir, born on Welsh soil, to be their prince. It was an act which salved the hurt of wounded pride, and aided materially the peaceful fusion of the two States. The solemn investiture of each heir as their prir.ee perpetuates that act, giving the people of Wales to this day a central point toward which may radiate their pride of citizenship, their sense of loyalty. That similar feelings exist in the younger members of the Imperial brotherhood is shown by the suggestion, several times made, that the Prince should hold, temporarily, the office of Governor-General of one or other of the greater Dominions. He has not been able to give himself to any one of the Dominions, but he has, so far as possible, given himself for a brief period to them all. If some have not received all they asked of him, all have received the most that

he could give. The result has been a quickening of the sense of Empire citizenship, a renewed appreciation of the significance of the Throne as the institution which, above all others, sets the seal upon Imperial unity. Imperialism has been a muchabused word. It has been used freely by those who could not, or would not, interpret it save as aggression. In the same way the institution of monarchy has been misunderstood or wilfully misinterpreted. It is now beginning to be generally grasped that should anything destroy the stability of the British Empire the world would be infinitely the poorer, even leaving out of consideration those countries to which such an event would come as a cataclysmic disaster. In the same way should the Empire appreciate the importance of the throne as the one Imperial institution above party and aloof from the heat of controversy. To the citizen of the British Commonwealth, fealty to the King is fealty to his Empire, his home and to himself. The Prince, coming among the peoples of ' the Empire, has captured the popular imagination, has quickened the general feeling of loyalty, and has transmuted into a living and vital affection what might otherwise have become a vague and general acceptance of a time-sanctioned institution. The success of his tours has been their justification, their results are likely to be long-lived and farreaching.