MESSAGE TO THE KING

Southland Times, Issue 23826, 25 May 1939, Page 5

MESSAGE TO THE KING

MOTHER UNHURT AND WELL

ROYAL TRAIN GOES INTO BACKWOODS

STOP AT BIRTHPLACE OF HIAWATHA

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Received May 24, 8.5 p.m.)

FORT WILLIAM (Ontario), May 23. The King and Queen learned of the accident to Queen Mary when the Royal train was stopped at 1.50 p.m. (local time) to take on water at Schreiber, a tiny settlement in the heart of James Oliver Curwood’s Canada, says the special correspondent of the Australian Associated Press. They learned direct from Buckingham Palace that Queen Mary was “unhurt and quite well.” The King immediately sent a message of sympathy to Queen Mary.

The King and Queen did not change their programme for the day except to make several unscheduled appearances on the observation platform at the rear of their carriage to ackowledge cheers from crowds which had travelled unbelievable distances.

At every Hudson Bay Company post there were groups of trappers, lumbermen, breeds and Indians. The spirit of the North-West was typified by one isolated trapper who, with a tiny Union Jack fluttering above, his log hut, stood stiffly, holding his rifle at the present, as the Royal train passed. COLDEST SPOT IN CANADA It was snowing when the train reached White river, the coldest spot in Canada, where the mercury has sometimes stood at 72 degrees below zero. Nevertheless, the King and Queen left the train and chatted with the crew of the train.

The sun was turning the waters of Lake Superior to a sparkling blue when the Royal party reached Fort William, the district of the Thunder God and the traditional birthplace of Hiawatha. They received a welcome from representatives of all the tribes in the backwoods.

At Port Arthur, 1500 miles from the ocean, they drove through the world’s greatest grain docks and saw giant elevators with a capacity of 93,000,000 bushels.

At White River the Queen chatted with an Indian woman who had a papoose on her back. The woman told the Queen that she had paddled 80 miles. The King was obviously touched when two bearded trappers told him they had come 400 miles on the off chance of seeing the Royal,train pass through. When the King makes his Empire broadcast from the library of the Manitoba Government House in Winnipeg tomorrow only the Queen will be with him, says the special correspondent of the Australian Associated Press. The King and Queen will listen to a programme in which subjects from all parts of the Empire, including Australia and New Zealand, will send messages of loyalty and affection. Promptly at 2.45 (eastern standard time) the King will begin speaking. This Empire Day speech, made at the geographical centre of the Empire, is the one the King said in December that be would make in place of the Christmas broadcast which he desired to be associated with his father’s memory.

The speech will be translated and transmitted from London to Germany.

LIST OF PRIVILEGED AMERICANS INVITATIONS TO GARDEN PARTY AT WASHINGTON (Received May 24, 8.50 p.m.) WASHINGTON, May 23. Lady Lindsay, wife of the British Ambassador (Sir Ronald Lindsay), has published a list of the Americans who are invited to meet the King and Queen at the Embassy garden party on June 16. The list includes Mr John L. Lewis (the chairman of the Committee for Industrial Organization), Mr Henry Ford, Mr J. P. Morgan, Colonel C. A. Lindbergh, Mr J. D. Rockefeller, jun., Mr H. E. Hoover. Mr A. M. Landon (the Republican Party leader), Mr F. H. La Guardia (Mayor of New • York), General J. J. Pershing (Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Force iri 1917), their wives, and all the widows. of former Presidents of the United States.