The Star. THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 1926. THE KING’S BIRTHDAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17863, 3 June 1926, Page 8

The Star. THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 1926. THE KING’S BIRTHDAY.

Ilis Majesty George the Fifth, who celebrates his sixty-first birthday to-day, will be the recipient of loyal messages of congratulation and affection from all parts of his vast Empire. As years are counted, his Majesty is a comparatively young man, and although the strain of the Great War, coming a few years after his accession to the throne, imposed very heavy burdens upon him, his people join in the hope that he will be spared for many more years to rule over them. His Majesty was born at Marlborough House in 1865. He was the second son of King Edward, and spent many years in the Navy until the death of the Duke of Clarence in 1892. King George was married on July 26, 1893, to Princess Victoria Mary, only daughter of the Duke of Teck. He succeeded to the Throne on May 6, 1910, so that he has reigned just over sixteen years. The House of Hanover, now the House of Windsor, came in, 111 1714, with George the First, who reigned for thirteen years. George the Second reigned for thirty-three years, and George the Third for fifty-nine years, although the Regency commenced in 1811, nine years before his death. George the Fourth reigned for ten years, William the Fourth for seven years, Victoria for sixty-three years, and King Edward for nine years. King George has shown ideal qualities as a constitutional monarch, and he has done much, in a personal sense, to maintain the Constitution which so many misguided persons would be glad to pull down. All classes of his subjects to-day will echo the old line of the National Anthem, “ God Save the King.”

The completion of the telephone cable across Cook Strait has brought Wellington and Blenheim into closer communication, hut the land line southwards, with relay equipment in the vicinity of liaikoura, has yet to be completed before Christchurch can enjoy the benefits of this form of communication. It says very little for the enterprise of the Post and Telegraph Department that this very necessary work has been so long delayed, and it is not quite clear, even now, that the service will be satisfactory. Hand lines of any kind are subject to constant interference by storms and wash-outs, and it is time that there was wireless communication between the two islands. Even to-day, a person presenting a wireless message in Christchurch is liable to he told, as a business man was told a year or two back, that it cannot be accepted, as the lines to Wellington are down. It is hard to believe that while Wellington had a Government wireless station long before King George came to the throne, Christchurch is still waiting to be served, and it is most regrettable that the South Island should receive such cavalier treatment where Government services are concerned.

The latest census figures, which incidentally place Christchurch in the position of second city in New Zealand, are interesting as showing a continued drift to the north, to which the Minister of Internal Affairs has drawn attention. This drift may have the effect of further reducing the representation of the South Island, which at present returns thirty European members to the North Island’s forty-six. Just what the true proportions ought to he will not be clear until the final figures are available, but the North Island population appears to he increasing at the rate of two to one as compared with the South Island. In these circumstances, it is ‘most gratifying to note that Christchurch is not involved. Despite the fact that at the time of the census Dunedin was expected to gain considerably in respect of Exhibition visitors, principally from Christchurch, the City of the Plains shows a greater increase than any other city as far as the purely urban area is concerned, while it lias made a notable increase in the metropolitan area. This will have an important bearing on the question of Parliamentary representation for the city electorates, on which the final figures will throw an interesting light. The work of the Boundary Commission, indeed, may give some surprising results, *-