THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1939 THE ROYAL VISIT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23339, 6 May 1939, Page 12

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1939 THE ROYAL VISIT

From Portsmouth to-day, King George and Queen Elizabeth will set forth on a Royal voyage, without parallel in the histoi-y of the British Throne. They will board a passenger liner and leave for their six weeks' tour of Canada and the United States. It will be the first occasion on which a reigning British sovereign has ever visited one of his Dominions and the first occasion, too, on which a man who is "of the British Dominions beyond the seas King" has set foot on the soil of the "lbst colonies," now grown into the great and friendly American nation. The Royal tour, therefore, is raised immeasurably in importance. As travellers in the cause of Empire, Their Majesties are not novices. Their journeyiogs as Duke and Duchess of York are gratefully remembered, not least in New Zealand, but now it is the King himself who will go forth. Within a few days Their Majesties will be sojourning in a land self-governed within the British Commonwealth of Nations, and it requires no prophet to predict that there will then be demonstrated to all peoples the unswerving loyalty of a world-wide Empire under one Crown. For in visiting Canada, the oldest of the British Dominions, the King is, in effect, visiting the Empire as a whole. Ottawa's welcome will symbolise "the one voice and consent of tongue and heart" with which every other part of the British realm proclaims its pride in a noble heritage; it will awaken a responsive echo throughout the Empire. Similarly, when the King and Queen cross the Canadian border into the United States, the Empire will be with them in spirit, thankful for the ties of blood and tradition which still survive.

More than 40 years ago, on the introduction of the Canadian preferential tariff, Kipling wrote his lines to "Our Lady of the : A Nation spoke to a Nation,

A Throne sent word to a Throne: "Daughter am I in my mother's house, But mistress in my own!" It is to this Canada, grown to full maturity among the nations of the world, that King George and Queen Elizabeth are journeying. Throughout his tour, His Majesty will be attended by Ministers of his Government in Canada. In the United States he will be accompanied by the Prime Minister of Canada as Minister in Attendance. From the heart of the Canadian prairies on Empire Day, the King will speak to all his peoples by the magic of wireless. In ways such as this the Royal tour will underline the genius of Empire. Foreigners, many of them, cannot conceive a group of free nations living in equal partnership under a common monarchy. Kipling it was who, long before the scrupulous phrasing of the Statute of Westminster, pointed the way:—

"The gates are mine to open As the gates are mine to close, And I abide by my mother's house," Said our Lady of the Snows. Canada's geographical situation, her close relations with her great neighbour in the North American continent, have developed in her a sense of aloofness from the European scene and a tendency in some respects to close her gates on the outside world. But she is still daughter in her mother's house, still a ipember of the Empire family. The welcome she accords her Royal guests will be proof of her filial standing. It is good to think, too, that Canadians will greet their King and Queen as a people descended from French as well as British stock. Here in a British Dominion is a living embodiment of the spirit < that Their Majesties have helped to foster in Paris and in London. The Royal visit to the United States will be confined to five days early in June, when Their Majesties will be the guests of President and Mrs. Roosevelt. In some American quarters the fear has been expressed that the visit may have political motives, but treaties, alliances and military understandings are utterly foreign to the spirit in which the President issued his invitation and in which Their Majesties accepted it. If, as a result of the visit, Britons and Americans come to realise more clearly their kinship not only in blood but also in ideals, a magnificent purpose will have been served, but such a realisation must spring from something that transcends politics. Before his appointment as British Ambassador at Washington, the Marquess of Lothian, discussing the American attitude to the European crisis,' pointed out that Britain would have to play her own hand in world affairs. "The' more inde- [ pendent and vigorous and powerful we are in resisting blackmail," he said, "the more likely is the United States to rally in support. But she will never allow us to transfer to her shoulders burdens which she thinks, for reasons of geography or otherwise, are ours." And so the visit of British Royalty to the White House can be accepted for what it really is—an act of friendship on the part of both host and guest. That friendship, firmly established, can mean more than all the treaties and agreements that politicians ever devised. As for the personal side, both Canadians and Americans will see in Britain's King a man of transparent honesty and of immense devotion to a high and noble duty. In the Queen they will recognise a woman of charm and courage, sharing with her husband the burdens of office. Their Majesties are supremely fitted to bear the message of British friendship to the New, World..