THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, MAY 6, 1935. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS A KING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22563, 6 May 1935, Page 14

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, MAY 6, 1935. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS A KING

It is no idle claim that King George, whose silver jubilee celebrations will be commenced to-day, is the last of the great monarchs of his time. All save him -have fallen before the irreconcilable antagonisms which twentieth century conditions obtruded into the relations between kings and their peoples. To borrow a trick of style from the impressionist school of historians we might "wind distant horns through homely scenes," and bid his people in this Dominion consider on the one hand the' harmony of a peaceful and prosperous Europe at his coronation, and on the other the discords of a world torn by economic nationalism at his silver jubilee. His Majesty may justly be called a great world figure. His people must regard him not only in Imperial terms, but also in relation to the tremendous world changes of his times—not so much the movement of kings and armies, but the march of international affairs and the growth of world fellowship which take no count of national frontiers. Partly by the boon of his years, but largely by the power of his own qualities, he has excelled the many crowned heads which fell before the "mountains of impediment," yet it will probably be half a century he.nce before the world will gain a true measure and estimate of his real significance. Naturally among his own people his worth is the more readily appreciated. In all but the accidents of fate and fortune he is one of themselves. The proud monai'ch has everything in common with the proud people he rules. As Mr John Buchan puts it in " The King's Grace," "when on Christmas Day in recent years the King has spoken to his people . . . he is not a Sovereign or symbol, but the Head of a Family who summons his household jound the hearth." The place he holds in that family is no mere empty tribute to a figurehead. A high seriousness of purpose,: allied to an acute sense of honour in the performance of duty and a courageous temper in the pursuit of what he deems to be right service, have earned him the deep homage and respect of his people and at the same time been of signal value to his country. By the exercise of a rare quality of resti'aint he has exhibited as warm a jealousy for constitutional principles as the most democratic of his subjects. Yet he has not hesitated on more than one momentous occasion to claim the authority and prerogative of the Crown. History will take proper account of the real significance of his actual interventions in the vital affairs of state, but the most critical survey of those events could produce nothing to alter the opinion of his subjects that he has been the very pattern of a constitutional monarch. Theoretically the Crown may make over the Channel Islands to France or sell the West Indies to America. Similarly the King may prevent any measure from becoming law simply by refusing his assent to the proposed legislation. His Majesty, however, has been more than content to allow such sanctions to remain theories, avoiding, except in eases of extreme emergency, any interference which might, by some stretch of the imagination, be construed as exhibiting a disregard for the Constitution. And yet, living more or less dependent in the shadow of the Constitution, he is still independent of his surroundings. Recognising that the political arena is no place for the intrusion of the Crown and devoting such energies as would have been wasted there to the display of an intimately genuine interest in the joys and sorrows, hopes and despairs of his wide-flung peoples, he has emptied republican philosophy of many shibboleths and shaken to the foundations whatever opposition has been directed against his benevolent monarchy. By the force of example he has drawn the Empire further and further from the mood in which Europe worships her Mussolinis and Hitlers, " filling the husks of royalty

with good grain and stopping the flaws with his fair hope." The reign, begun in times of great prosperity, has covered what may fittingly be described as the most tragic period of the world's history. Yet in spite of the difficulties and dangers of his age, the silver jubilee of the King this year sees the tide of the esteem in which he is held at its highest flow. Throughout the dark days of 1914-1918 the front which he turned to his people in an ordeal as searching as any in history was not maintained without effort. He was no easy optimist, no armchair spectator of the woes of others. The doctrine of sacrifice and doing without was essential to his creed and practice. Patience is the condition of action; renunciation the beginning of attainment. It is sound doctrine now as then, and, although in this less exacting age, the stern tenets of the gospel of work do not always fit the conscience of a generation that has conceded deliverance by the dole, his Majesty stands before his people as an interested and still active participant in national affairs. But there is another line of sympathy thatendears the royal house to the British people. It is to be found in the engagingly regal personality and appearance of the Queen, concerning whom it has been written, "There could not have been a finer helpmeet than Queen Mary." Her widelyrespected virtues of domesticity and homeliness have been proved genuine and unaffected, and the deep feelings of devotion and regard that are entertained for her by the King's subjects may be regarded as a natural recognition of her building of a model family life that has been the admiration and inspiration alike of the -njhole Empire. Her self-dedicated task has been by no means a sinecure during the eventful years of the reign she has shared with his Majesty. An intimate biography of her would reveal very much less than the truth if it failed to show that she has shared with women the whole world • over that inescapable burden of their sex which is "to eat their bread with tears and spend their night-watches a-weeping." While her royal state has been powerless to protect her in that respect, she has in queenly fashion and with queenly grace discharged unerringly the responsibilities and. duties that must always be the often unenviable privilege of the consort of a king.