THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1939 A ROYAL HOMECOMING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 14

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1939 A ROYAL HOMECOMING

The greatest voyage of State in the history of the British Throne has now come to a close and, with the return of King George and Queen Elizabeth from their travels in Canada and the United States, it is only natural that rejoicing at their homecoming should be echoed from Southampton and London to the most remote corners of the distant colonies and Dominions. Seven weeks ago Their Majesties sailed from Portsmouth, after receiving the traditional gift of the fortress keys in token of the loyalty and devotion of their subjects in the island home of the British race. They have returned not only with a proud knowledge of similar loyalty and devotion extended to them by the first of the British Dominions but also with the symbolic keys of personal friendship which may yet be used for opening the door to an even closer understanding with the people of the United States. Canadians will probably forgive a widespread tendency to regard as the focal point of the tour the few days spent by the King and Queen as guests o£ President and Mrs. Boosevelt. Canada's welcome was an intimate family affair and its warmth typified the lasting strength of the Empire spirit. The Dominion Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, replying to Empire Day greetings from the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. R. G. Menzies, was able to say : "There has been nothing comparable in the history of Canada to the nation-wide rejoicing which this visit has evoked." Rejoicing no less warm would have greeted Their Majesties in any other country of the Empire that they might have visited, but the thunderous acclaim of millions of Americans in Washington and New York showed that a people who are outside the Empire family nevertheless recognised, through the personal qualities of the King and Queen, the kinship of ideas and the community of interests that exist between two great democracies. The most useful purpose that could be served by the Royal visit to the United States would be an awakening of British interest in the history and aspirations of the American nation. It has been pointed out before that Their Majesties arrived in Washington in a year when the Americans are honouring the memory of the man after whom their capital is named. The day has long since passed when Washington was regarded as a rebel. His statue has its place of honour in Trafalgar Square—a tribute not only to the national hero of America but also to a great Englishman. Indeed, only 20 years after the War of Independence, the Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria's father, visited the young republic and attended one of Mrs. Washington's receptions at the White House. Washington was technically a rebel, but there is now an appreciation of the fact that the principles for which he threw off his allegiance to the Throne of England were derived from no foreign source but from the very substance of the English political tradition. With others he turned his hand to the building of the Federal Government of the United States, a laboratory experiment, as Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler describes it, in the great undertaking which now confronts the whole world —the establishment of a permanent and organised society of nations on a new adaptation and application of the Federal principle. That principle was developed to some extent by Bismarck in his organisation of the German Empire after the FrancoPrussian War j it was admitted, too, only a few years ago when the Statute of Westminster gave formal shape to the British Commonwealth of Nations. Much can thus be learned from the rise of a nation which venerates Magna Carta, almost equally with the Declaration of Independence, among the scriptures of its liberties. There is no reason for hesitating to "call in the New World to redress the balance of the Old." The welcome extended to Their Majesties both in Canada arid the United States suggests that a time is coming when a call to the New World, not from any narrow national cause but for the benefit of humanity as a whole, may be gladly and resolutely answered. The bond of blood still exists between Britons and Americans but, with the passage of years and the extent of eai'lier migration westward across the Atlantic, it has lost some of its former significance. But another bond exists—that of faith and ideals, the love of peace and liberty and the adherence to the rule of law. It is worth while recalling that some months before Their Majesties left England a trade agreement between Great Britain and the United States was successfully completed. When the pact was signed in Washington it was accompanied by a declaration from the American Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, that "the United States, Great Britain and Canada had given a new vitality to the basic principles of a civilised world order, the acceptance and application of which were indispensaljle to economic well-being and social security, and thus to the continued advancement and progress of mankind." So it was that when the King and Queen arrived in Washington they were received not as strangers but as partners in an unending quest. Their Majesties' triumphant journey is over, but its memory will remain fresh for years to come. Such a memory will be of real value only if it encourages a constant effort on the part of all the English-speaking peoples to : maintain that harmony of sentiment i to which the Royal visit gave such ; fitting expression. i