"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3418, 19 September 1919, Page 57

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for the Ladies' Page.) THE END OF JUNE. ; The Channel is running- j in leaden waves' before an angry northeast wind; the bitten roses -pale and shiver in the gusts' of sleet-like rain; and before the midsummer fire one wonders if there was ever a drought, if ever man and-beast and the eartn panted for cool breezes and the rain, or whether the golden radiance of the first weeks of summer was all a dream; For, after the first "day of gracious steady rain and ths scent of a conservatory when being watered, the warmth departed. The east and northeast winds came blustering. back from their retreai>—and here we are! Very grateful for the rain; but now We've had it for the week the farmers wanted (but not the cold wind with it!), we are hoping that the clerk of the weather has not mistaken our importuning for rain and has withdrawn the summer altogether, for we have not had enough of it by far. But for that, as for many other good things, we must -wait and see. Meanwhile what a changed aspect the world has. The faerie nights when spells are woven and the elves and pixies are abroad have been replaced by nights of scudding clouds, and the gorse and bracken on the moorland slopes bend to the wind. Along the shores half-naked folk are no longer laughing in the blue-and-white waters, but hurry along the beach buttoned in mackintosh or wrapped in furs, and disconsolate folk huddle to one another in the shelters with their backs turned to the sea, The poetry of midsummer has departed. May it return with the new moon ! The delicious shady backwaters of the Thames when it is 120 deg in the sun and the trees spread their °leafv branches is one thing, and quite another when one shivers indoors without a fire, and transparent frocks are discarded for old winter skirts and jumpers. Only the crews practising for Henley appreciate the river in a north wind, and they have got it chiefly to themselves. The Ascot folk are full of self-congratulation that the Ascot week was during the golden spell, for had thia week's weather been one week earlier Ascot as a fairyland would not have been* The <rreat floral fete of the Royal Horticultural Society War Relief Fund, to restore the gardens of the Allies, wa*

held during the week in the grounds of the Chelsea Hospital. The Queen sent a •splendid assortment of fruit and flowers; but it wanted the ideal sunshine of the earlier days of June to make it the perfect success to which the beautiful grounds contribute. Queen Alexandra's Rose Day suffered, too, from wind and showers, which made it necessary for the rose-sellers to wear jumpers or cloaks over their charming flocks, but did not damp the enthusiasm of either the vendors of the flowers or their purchasers. It was the eighth anniversary of Alexandra Day, which began as early as 2 in the morning, when To&es were being sold by energetic workers in Smithfield and Covent Garden Market. New features were introduced into this picturesque charity. A choir of 500 voices, organised by the Arts and Crafts, sang at intervals throughout the day in Berkley square, where girls gave charming rose dances. In the afternoon the •' Queen of Roses"' made a tour through some .of the principal thoroughfares of the city and West End. All the way loving tokens of flowers were heaped upon the gracious lady of England's happier years. As she drove slowly, smiling, through the London which had gone mad with joy and pride to receive her as Edward's bride years and years ago, her heart, despite her smiles, must have been bursting with memories. And yet, this daughter and widow of kings, with the pageantry of a wonderful past behind her, when she as no other princess of her day, reigned as the ideal princess of beauty and grace, yet still die. is hailed with roses ! England loves her still. She has loved and suffered for England since she came ia her radiant girlhood as the bride of England's future King. For the first time since the war a Royal salute was fired by the Court Bombardier at Windsor in honour of the Prince of Wales's twenty-fifth birthday. The bells of St. George's Chapel that have rung on so many, occasions of happy and august Royal events woven with English history rang again, and the bells of the old Windsor parish church, that have rung such glad and sad tidings of the past, rang out again in congratulation of youth. The British Court has baen a middle-aged Court for so long that with the advent of a young man heir entering society and a youthful Princess at Court, the influences of youth are bound to be felt in society. Since the " coming-out " years the country has been at war, and the young Princes and Princess engaged upon the country's business, but the natural pleasures of a peace-time and the young may once more have vent without reproach. During the dark years the British Court set an example of self-denial. There was not an Englishman's home in the country under greater discipline than the home of the King and Queen. No young people in the Empire worked with more conscientious thoroughness, * retting duty before self-gratification, than did the young people of the Royal House. And thero was no surer way to the heart of the nation. The visit'of the Prince of Wales to the miners of Wales this week has proved this. His reception by returned soldiers on the field of their labour was been the reception not of a spoiled boy or a mere ornament of Court and societv. but of a man of courage in dauber and difficulty, as the future King of England, who is anxious to understand and is making himself acquainted with the conditions of the lives of the working men and women over whom he will one day reign. It was a happy inspiration of the Prince of Wales to begin his tour of South Wales on his birthday. As colonel-in-chief Of the Welsh Guards he wore the Guards' uniform with the badges of the regiment. '£t Cardiff the Prince was given a civic turelcomo, and there was a great crowd of

people to greet him. It was the beginning of a week of enthusiastic receptions by the Welsh people, and the Prince was kept in constant remembrance that he was in Wales. At Cardiff Castle, where he stayed, the guest of the Marquis and Marchioness of Bute, during dinner a choir of Welsh ladies sang, and a Welsh harpist played selections. The xvoyal Agricultural Show' was the great event of the Aveek, and the War Office had made arrangements for 1000 overseas agriculturists, representing the Dominion forces, to visit the show. The Prince spent hours among the exhibits. A Shorthorn bull of his own wa°> among the prize-takers. The tour through the mining villages of Glamorgan was a triumphal one; in the Rhondda Valley they threw roses. The Prince visited a number of the cottages, and went into the bedrooms and trim parlours to see for himself the conditions under which the miners' live, and he congratulated the cottagers on their beautiful gardens. In I his speech after the luncheon given by the ■r colliery directors, the Prince said he knew what a strenuous life a miner had, for he j had tried to do some work with a pick I The Prince, clad in overalls and a leather helmet, descended one of the mines 1 accompanied by Lord Claud Hamilton and Major Walts Morgan, and was much interested in the descent and the workings. Quite a round of festivities took place at Cardiff Castle durin.g the evenings of the Prince's visit, including several big dances. The I\ing and Queen spent the early part of the week auietly at Windsor Castle resting after their busy Ascot week, and went up to London in time to hold the first of a series of " garden courts " | at. Buckingham Palace. The first was the I day of the debutantes' garden party, or I "garden court," given with the view to i enabling an accumulation of debutantes unprcsented during >he five years of the war an opportunity to make their courtesy to the King and Queen. It was also the first occasion on which Princess Mary and Prince Albert have been -present at a State--function. Four thousand invitations had been issued, and an hour before the gates of the palace were opened fat 7i.30) guests were arriving in motor cars, which, when the nalace gates were opened, moved forward in batches of six at a time, and j deposited the guests without crushing or ' confusion. But so great was the number of cars that it was r>ast 5 before the last I guest alighted, although the 10 main j entrances to the palace were opened. It | was a chnrmlng scene. In the paln.ee j gardens were represented the most notable ] men and women of the day. and some of | the most beautiful women and girls, i dressed in the perfection of garden party i toilets, the debutantes in picture-white frocks and hats of filmv texture. But the chilliness of the dav brought every shade of colour and Oriental richness into the scene by the eapss—vivid red and green, orange and purple and blue, many effectively embroidered in scrolls or birds p.nd flowers in proM and silver, and every shade of the rainbow. The proceedings were delightfully informal. Their Majesties reached the rrrounds bv the garden entrance, and walked slowlv down the ranks, chatting with those thev knew and welcoming strangers. The was in orthodox morning dress and the Queen in a lovely gown of hyacinth-blue chiffon embroidered in velvet, with a silver tissue tonne veiled in blue. A little behind their Maiesties walked. Princess Mary, who looked charming in an embroidered rosepink frock and a dark blue hat trimmed with roses. The Princess Royal wore a grey cloak and grev hat. and her daughter, Princess Maud, who was with her, was in blue. Princess Christian, Princess Beatrice, and Princess Helena Victoria, Princess Alice,' the Duchess of

Albany, and Prince Albert were in the Boyal party. I was writing ray Witness letter en the fateful August 4 when war was declared, and now to-day (June 2£) I am concluding this letter as the guns announce that peace has been signed. The hush that has been over Britain all the afternoon from palace to cottage is broken ; the tense of waiting is ended. London ha-s made its preparations for its celebrations to-night, and from John o' Groats to Land's End bonfires will burn round this island. Hark at the guns! Thank God for peace and all who helped to gain it.