"A Sevenfold Cable"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22725, 11 May 1937, Page 4 (Supplement)

"A Sevenfold Cable"

IT is much truer to say that King George VI. has succeeded his father than that he has succeeded his brother, King Edward VIII. Without in any sense under-estimating the great service King Edward rendered to Britain and the Empire as Prince of Wales, and without defying the precise facts of recent history, it is King George VI. who takes up the task of his great father. Thus it was appropriate at this moment to regard the new reign as expressing continuity with that of King George V., and the idea has been brilliantly expressed by John Buchan in the following passage, which, written in 1935, has proved to be inspiredly prophetic although the Succession has been changed : i To cast the mind back over the last twentyfive years is to survey changes such as no other quarter-century in our record can show. Never before has the nation faced such stupendous "varieties of untried being." But in a season of startling breaches with the past one thing has been unbroken ; one ancient institution has provided the cord on which mutations have been strung—a cord stretching back to our earliest annals. That cord, which has often been thin and sometimes frayed, is now a sevenfold cable. What has become of the solemn nineteenthcentury flirtings with republicanism 1 The whole nation, the whole Empire, is royalist to-day, not only in constitutional doctrine but in personal affection. Majesty and Grace are in the royal office. Monarchy in some form is universal to-day, for it seems to bo a necessity in government. Elsewhere it is elective and temporary, as in republics; or, as in dictatorships, enforced and undefined in term. But a hereditary monarchy is not only more enduring than such types, it has a special quality which they can never win. A King, who reigns not by election or by a sudden popular impulse but by right, has a sanction behind him which no transient die-

LINK BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE

tator or president can claim. His authority is interwoven with the life and thought of his people. If, as in Britain, his ancestry goes back to our dim beginnings, the office embodies the whole history of the nation. Because it is beyond popular caprice, it is the centre of the nation's conscious unity, a link between its past and its future. It becomes a symbol, which needs no artificial sanctity to give it power. With this firm foundation Britain is enabled to be a bold pioneer in new construction, just as the man who would cast his spear far must first find solid footing. It preserves her from the wastefulness of revolution, and from the futile type of revolution which we call reaction. It has another supreme virtue. The essence of the British Monarchy is that the King, while lifted far above the nation, should also be the nation itself in its most characteristic form. There is no place on our Throne for the superman, whether ho be conqueror or dreamer; its occupant must bo recognised by his subjects as of like nature with themselves, exalted indeed, but with the same outlook on life, the same traditions and tastes, the same staunch and familiar virtues. "The Englishman," as Goldsmith wrote, "is taught to love the King as his friend"; and friendship involves a noble equality. In the Platonic Utopia the king was the philosopher; it is more important that he should be the plain man. . . . Leadership does not consist only in a strong man imposing his will upon others. In that sense it has no meaning for a British Sovereign. But in a far profounder sense King George V. has shown himself a leader, since the true task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, since the greatness is already there. That truth is the basis of all religion, it is the only justification for democracy, it is the chart and compass of our mortal life. The King has led his people, for he has evoked what is best in them.