YEARS OF JUBILEE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1508, 24 January 1901, Page 39

YEARS OF JUBILEE.

Ne'er in our Crowned Republic's story yet, Of all that men remember or forget, This strange, this precious thing has been: No reign ol threescore years of King or Queen Our annals hold—till in this waning age Time's finger writes it on the storied page. EXPANSION OF EMPIRE. Every other advance made during the "Victorian era is dwarfed by the! ,tremendous expansion that has taken place of the bounds of the British Empire. The firm setting in the Queen's crown of one of its brightest jewels, India, suggested to a Prime Minister who stood high in her Majesty's favour an addition to her titles. At the beginning of the session of 1876 the Royal Speech announced that such an addition was to bel made, and after several attempts on the part of the Opposition to get at the nature of the ehange, Mr Disraeli at last announced in a somewhat heteitating way that the Queen was to be called "Empress of India/' A strong dislike was displayed •to what was considered by many to be a superfluous and tawdry addition t° the ancient style of the sovereigns of England. The Goveramatnt of course carried its point. It deferred so far to feeling as to put into the Act a provision against the use of the Imperial title in the United Kingdom. -.,, '..fifty' years a queen. . In 1887 the Queen had reigned for fifty years, and her Jubilee was celebrated at Westminster Abbey on a magnificent scale and under the happiest conditions. The spontaneous loyalty of the nation and of the whole Empire to the! throne was most effectively manifested. With the usual mingled round of joy and trouble, of anxiety and deliverance, the often long intervals of calm, the Queen had pursued her quiet round of duty never neglected, and Royal functions performed with almost too little ostentation, so that the ignorant scarcely knew, and the best informed often forgot, how onerous and exhausting these were, until she reached the climax of her Jubilee, after fifty years of faithful seirvice to her country and the world. This great event, it was instantly perceived by all, must be celebrated in a manner worthy of its rarity in history, and of the great veneration and affecition borne, not only by her own dominions in that famous circle upon which the sun never sets, but by the whole civilised world, towards thet most honoured sovereign in Christendom. . Her

to make her thanksgiving, through two endless living walls of her subjects, crowding every window, every housetop, every pavement on her way, giving forth one prolonged shout of applause and bldssing, and meeting her eyes wherever they turned with the smiles and tears of multitudes, inch and poor, faces all beaming welcome, and full of tender reverence and admiration. She was surrounded and escorted—by a brilliant and romantic inspiration too full of poetry to have come, one would think, from any official brain—by a bodyguard of Princes, her sons and sons-in-law, the future King of England and the future Emperor of Germany among the band, a gallant group, who inspired the imagination above any othei detail cf the procession, though that included a number of Sovereigns, Western Kings and Eastern Princete, the latter blazing in diamonds and splendid colour, amid the more sombre costumes of Christendom. - The glorious Abbey (continues Mrs Oliphant), decoratdd more splendidly than by either flags or flowers, with row upon row and tier upon tier of faces, in every gallery and corner, full of enthusiasm and emotion, made a fit efnd and climax to all this splendour, and many a heart- beat with a pang of sympathy as the centre of all this rejoicing, the Queen, a woman well stricken in years, full of experience, surroun ded by her children and her subjects, yet, in the great isolation of her rank, alone, knelt before thel altar at which she had been consecrated —feeling, who can doubt, at that moment, as at all others, but ddubly in the gref-atness cf the event, the absence of him who alone could have taken from her a portion c f the burden of that triumph, as of ail the! troubles that went before it. THE DIAMOND JUBILEE. The praye/r, “Gcd Save the Queen,” was so fully answered that her Majesty lived to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. On the 28rd September, 1896, her Majesty’s reign had exceeded! that of any English monarch, George 111., whose fourth son, Edward Duke of Kent, was the father cf the Queen, having died in the fifty-ninth year cf his occupancy of the throne. It was the Queen’s expressed desire, however, that the national rejoicing which v. c u 1 d naturally signalise so aivpicious a day should be postponed until the sixtieth anniversary of her succession. As soon as the Royal wish in this regard was made known, spontaneous preparations commenced all over her •vast Empire w’th a view to celebrating in a manner worthy the nation and the nation’s Sovereign so great and glorious a reign. Side by side with extension of empire there had been the growth of Imperial sentiment among the mass of the English people, and' of love for the Mother Country on the part of her colonial sons. The invitation to the Premiers of Australia, Canada, the Cape, New Zealand and Newfoundland to visit England and take a personal/ share in tlie national celebration was one which consequently met with a ready and hearty response. They •were to brine with them, to use the words of Sir Walter Besant, representatives of the fighting forces of the colonies and dependencies—of the brave fellows who were helping to maintain that Greater Britain beyond the seas—and were to come as guests of the nation. They came and brought with them something more valuable than all —the desire for closer union and for a united defence A UNIQUE CELEBRATION. As the historic 22nd cf June drew nearer, London put on the gayest and brightest attire. From ever house-top and window floated the Union Jack, or fluttered flags and bunting, while on the line of route mapped out for the triumphal progress of the Sovereign decorations had been arranged on a scale of beauty and magnificence never equalled in the history of the capital. Wherever timber could be safely fashioned into temporary seats, there stands had been erected—some of immense size holding as many as five thousand persons, others of towering height, some on roofs of Government offices and some resting against sides of church steeples, or built on the few vacant spots to be found amid the bricks and mortar of an overcrowded city. For days the streets were thronged with eager sight-seers from all parts of England, from Europe and America. Foreign princes, distinguished ambassadors and special envoys arrived at the invitation of the Sovereign and the Government ; there was feasting and jubilartion, and London for once at any rate was the gayest of gay cities. Sunday, 20th June, 1897, the sixtieth anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne, Was observed as a day of general thanksgiving throughout the country. In the morning her Majesty, attended by many of her children, went to St George’s, Windsor, to return thanks in the historic chapel of the castle for all the blessings and glories of her reign. In London, the members of the House of Peers were present in their robes of scarlet and ermine in Westminster Abbey; her Majesty’s "faithful Commons” went to the Church of St.Margaret’s, near neighbour to the Abbey; and the Judges attended St. Paul’s Cathedral, at which the Prince and Princess of Wales werel also worshippers. COMMEMORATION DAY. When Commemoration Day broke, dull and 1 cloudy, London was already awake, and thousands were pouring in from the suburbs to take theiir places on

and stands, the rest by the roadside. Those who had sldpt out in the open in be. James’s Park, anxious to be the first to greet their Sovereign on this auspicious day, saw the Royal Standard floating under the pray sky and above Buckingham Palace, wheke the Queen had passed the night. Soon (we continue our quotation from Sir Walter Besant’s narrative) there is life and movement behind thei great gates, a passing to and fro of servants in brilliant scarlet liveries, and the comino- of Royal carriages bringing the distinguished" guests who are to ride in the Royal procession. The crowds grow denser under the line of trees standing out in the green perspective of the! Park: as the morning wears on, although there is no sun, the heat; becomes stifling and oppressive. There is the marching and countermarching cf troops to the soiunds of military md-sio, the slow approach of those "war-worn veterans,” the pensioners of Chelsea Hospital, lor whom kindly forethought has provided benches within the palace gates, and the hurrying here and there of court functionaries and chiefs of police, until, just as Bis Ben, in the clock tower of the House of Commons, chimes out the first quarter after nine, the strains of the National Anthem herald the approach of the colonial procession. It had 1 been so arranged that these sturdy representatives of the guardians of peace and power over-sea should be the first to reach the Cathedral, there to line the roadways, so as to be able to gaze upon the Queen’s cortege as it went by, and then to fall in behind; thus not only seeing, but ultimately participating in the Sovereign’s progress. Cheers rend the air as, by way of the tree-shaded Mall, comes this mighty force of Empire personified, this moving column from the greatest volunteer army the world has ever seen. Men in red coats, men in blue, soldiers in the serviceable khaki, me/n with glistening helmets, or with turbans, carrying guns or holding lances the. stern Zaptiehs from Cyprus, the diminutive and yel-low-skinned Dyaks from North Borneo, the troops from Hongkong in their curious hats sitting like mushrooms on theiir headfi, those big-limbed fight-ers the Kansas and Maoris, the handsome forms of the Australian troopers, the Cape Mounted Rifles (fit bodyguard for the colony’s Premier), the Rhodesian Horset, whose participation in the recent troubles in South Africa secures for them a cheer of particular heartiness —men from Natal, from Canada, from every quarter where! the British flag flies and the English tongue is heard, move along between the unbroken lines of a joyous people, ready to acclaim them brothers in patriotism and loyalty as well as by blood and the ties of race!. It is a stirring scene, one which makes the pulse beat faster, and the face flush with pride and excitement. But a greater and a grander is •»ydt to come. While these brave sons are on their way to St. Paul’s, the Queen is preparing for her historic and triumphal progress along the same gailydecked streets, now packed with a moving mass of loyal people. There is but a short interval of increased expectancy betweien the passing of the colonials and the appearance of the front of the military pageant which is to accompany her Majesty to the steps of the Cathedral, wlxerd praise and thanksgiving are to be rendered to an Almighty God for the blessings of an unparalleled reign. It is the British Arm 3' in miniature, at the head of which, by desire of the Prince of Wales, rides the tallest man in the service, Captain G. Ames, of the Life Guards, proud of his six feelt eight inches, and having as an escort four troopers of exceptional stature. Bluejackets dragging their naval guns are . followed by d'etachmeints of cavalry regiments ; and then in imposing array, in what seems to be a never-ending line, mounted men pass in, review—Hussars," Dragoons, Lancers, and Horse Artillery —with bands playing and pennants flying, and high above the martial music rises the prdud cheers of a people justly glorying in this spectacle of military strength. With the appearance of tEe foreign suite, aiidds-de-camp, equerries and gentlemen in attendance on the Royal personages, the procession gains in stateliness and colour, every nation contributing its distinctive and gorgeous uniforms, making up a moving picture of unequalled splendour as these high dignitaries, some hundreds in number, precede the first cf the Royal carriages. An escort of Indian cavalry, richly dressed and splendidly horsed, follows, and then there is a slight break in the procession, for the seventeenth and last carriage is that containing the beloved Sovereign, on whom- all thoughts and hearts are centred. . . . It is calculated that considerably over a million persons saw the Royal procession, hut so admirable was the conduct ' and. the tdmper of tlie vast multitude that the accidents along the six miles of route were comparatively insignificant , and no loss of life was recorded. if the Tuesday of tho week of Diamond Jubilee, with its gorgeous pageant through the streets of London, gave proof of military power and Imperial greatness, the naval review on the Saturday, when the Prince of Wales, on behalf of the Queen, passed down lines of battleships moored a length of 25 miles, afforded! significant evidence of unparalleled naval strength. In the quiet waters of the Solent rode at anchor these maritime leviathans in five columns, each nearly five miles long, H 111 i . _ '

bunting and manned by England’s bluejackets—ironclads, torpedo vessels, cruisers, gunboats and torpedo-boat destroyers, sea-engines of destruction of every kind were there, and yet that immense collection of British Avar vessels formed but a portion of the Queen’s Navy scattered over the waters of the globe. Foreign nations sent a brave array of battleships in honour of the occasion, thousands of spectators crowded steamers in the waterway betyeen the southern coast and the Isle of Win-ht, while the shores Aver© black with sight-seers. A great military review by the Queen on Laffan’s Plain, Aldershot and the illumination of London for a week, were other outstanding, events of Diamond Jubilee week.