KING GEORGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22694, 5 April 1937, Page 9

KING GEORGE

CORONATION DAY EMPIRE HOMAGE GREAT BROADCAST DETAILS OF PLANS HIS MAJESTY TO SPEAK By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received April 4, 6.50 p.m.) LONDON, April 3 The Empire's homage on an unprecedented scale will be offered to King George , VI. on Coronation Day by wirless in the most ambitious programme the British Broadcasting Corporation has yet planned. It will last nearly an hour, beginning at 7.20 p.m., and will include features popularised during Christmas Day broadcasts in George Y.'s reign. Representative citizens will speak from the Dominions, after which the Prime Ministers of the Dominions will offer homage to His Majesty. All will speak from London. The Viceroy of India, Marquess of Linlithgow, will follow. He will broadcast from India/ A roll of the colonies will be called and their messages to the King will bo voiced from Bermuda by General Sir Reginald Hildyard, The Prime Minister Mr. Baldwin, will then deliver the closing address, which will lead up to the King's broadcast from Buckingham Palace. This will be an historic occasion, as the first on which the monarch will have spoken to all his subjects throughout the world within a few hours. The Coronation programme is to be recorded, thus enabling its repetition from Daventry to countries where the original broadcast will not have been heard.

The Sunday Dispatch says the King personally supervised the arrangements for the broadcast. It is estimated that His Majesty's potential audience may be 700,000,000. CROWN FOR CEREMONY TO ABBEY IN HATBOX SPECIAL RECITAL OF MUSIC LONDON, April 2 St. Edward's Crown, which the Sovereign wears only once in a lifetime, namely, when he is crowned, will be taken from the Tower of London to Westminster Abbey in a hatbox carried in a horse-drawn luggage van. It will be removed witli6ut ceremony from its heavily-guarded place in the Tower two days before the Coronation and returned immediately after.

The Duke and Duchess of Kent were among the audience at the Queen's Hall fo-day at a hearing of the first Coronation music, " Flourish for a Coronation," by Vaughan Williams, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

The composition celebrates the crowning with fanfares of trumpets, beating of drums and pealing of bells. The words, sung by the Philharmonic Choir, ore taken from the First Book of Kings, Second Chronicles, the Psalms and a verse from Chaucer.

VISIT TO WALES OPENING t OF A LIBRARY (Received April 4. 5.5 p.m.) British Wireless RUGBY, April 3 When the King and Queen visit Wales in July they will open the new buildings of the National Library of .Males at Aberystwyth. Later tjiey will visit Carnarvon, where they will be welcomed by Mr. Ll6yd George as Constable of Carnarvon Castle. THE FRENCH PARTY M. DELBOS' AS LEADER (Received April 4, 5.5 p.m.) British Wireless RUGBY, April 3 The French Foreign Minister, M. Delbos, will attend , the Coronation. He Will be accompanied by the Chiefs of the General Staff representing the •three forces, with their aides-de-camp, and bv three high permanent officers of the Quai D'Orsay. f JAPANESE DELEGATE _J (STATE DINNER IN CANADA OTTAWA, April 3 Prince Chichibu, a.Japanese delegate to the Coronation, was officially welcomed to-day by the Canadian Cabinet. The Governor-General, Lord TweedsInil ir, tendered a State dinner to the Prince, who is to sAil by the liner Queen Mary from New York. AUSTRALIAN QUARTERS attraction for crowds LONDON, March '.>* The Australian , Coronation continent's quarters at Wellington Barracks ai- e proving a magnetic attraction for •Easter crowds. -Hundreds of people stood outside the railings all day yesterday staring admiringly at the "Diceer" picket.