FAMILY FESTIVAL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18590, 28 December 1934, Page 6

FAMILY FESTIVAL

BRITAIN’S CHRISTMAS

OPTIMISTIC ATMOSPHERE

KING’S IMPRESSIVE SPEECH

(British. Official Wireless.)

Bee. 2 p.m. RUGBY, One. 07 The Christmas “Festival of the (Family,” ns the King described it- in his broadcast, to the. peoples of the Empire, was celebrated throughout Britain quietly and in an atmosphere of more confident optimism than has been the case for some years.

The holiday was without news, for polities was temporarily forgotten, and there was a happy absence of those calamities which so often comprise news. It. was a, “green” Christmas of mild, and occasionally wet, weather. Family reunions were general throughout the country. Greetings by long-distance telephone and telegraph kept the Post Office exceptionally busy. Alost people stayed at homo and the roads were singularly free from traffic.

As in the case of the two preceding years, the g'vat. event of Christmas Day was the King’s broadcast and the programme of Empire greetings. The King’s short message had an impressive simplicity and sincerity, and was addressed to ell members of the Empire family. There were special greetings for the Dominions, “through whom tiio family has Income a fellowship of free nations,” to the far-distant colonies, and to the peoples of India, to whom His Majesty sent an assurance of his constant care tor them and a desire that “they too may ever more fully realise and value their own place in the unity of the family.” “Although the world is still restless and troubled,” said the King, “tho clouds aro lifting., Wo have still our own troubles to meet, but if we meet them in tho family spirit, they will he overcome, for private and party interests will bo controlled by care, for tho whole community.”

la a moving passage at the end of the message, the King said: “May I add, very simply and sincerely, that if I may he regarded as in some true sense the bead of ibis great and widespread family, sharing >ts life and sustained by its affections, this will be a full reward for tho long and sometimes anxious labors of mv reign cl well-nigh five and twenty years. _ As I sit in my own home; i| am thinking of the great multitudes who are listening to my voice, whether they be in British homes or in the faroff regions of the world. For you all, and specially for your children, I) wish a happy Christmas. I commend you to tho Father of whom every family in Heaven and on earth is named. God bless you all.” The Empire broadcast which preceded the King’s SDeech heightened the effect of his words. Listeners were taken, without a moment’s wait, from one extremity of the Empire to the other, from Australia to Canada, from the North-west Frontier of India to Rhodesia. Little talks from these places gave an extraordinary effect of the unity which has overcome distance, hut not the least impressive was the concluding item from Ilmington, the central village of Britain, where an old shepherd, who i had never visited London, or seen the sea, told in broad dialect of his life ora the Cotswolds.

Only in Australia was any difficulty experienced m hearing the King's message, which was relayed throughout the United States and some other countries, as well as throughout all parts of the Empire.