"BARBAROUS” PROGRAMME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 115, 18 May 1939, Page 7

"BARBAROUS” PROGRAMME

11,000 MILES IN 28 DAYS STOP-WATCH PRECISION QUEBEC, May 16. ' The special correspondent of the i Australian Press Association says that Their Majesties are facing a programme which is so crowded that the , Canadian Press describes ft as barbari ous in its demands on their strength. During twenty-eight days they will travel 11,000 miles. Every minute will be planned with a stop watch. Cere- ■ mony in the smaller centres will be | cut to the minimum, owing both to : limitations of time and Their Majesi ties’ express desire to see and meet • the Canadian people. The latter are . eagerly awaiting them along the line . of route that will begin on the majes- ■ tic bluff over Wolfe’s Cove, and the ' trail is draped with flags for 3000 ■ miles to the Pacific Coast. Their I Majesties will visit 52 cities and towns. They will see a landscape of infinite I variety—forested hills, the innumerable lakes of Quebec, thousands of miles of prairie, the towering wall of : the Rocky Mountains, the fiords and i islands of British Columbia, the great woods of New Brunswick, the reci cliffs and shining sands of Prince Edward Island, and the rock-bound coasts and salty tides of Nova Scotia. Frqm the long-settled land of French Canada, where the ancient civilisation has been preserved intact, they will touch the frontiers oi a new country, and observe the new traditions which are being built in the North-west. The reception awaiting Their Majesties is illustrated by the spirit of the school children in droughtridden Saskatchewan, who, with the aid of their teachers, have been saving their pennies for months o that they can travel to Regina to sec their King and Queen. corned in the capital of the new France and the respectful homage of the whole population be offered in the language of Champlain, who founded Quebec in 1608, and the descendents of his heroic companions who explored as far as theh Rockies, since His Majesty daims common though distant ancstry. Those pioneers came directly rom the Duchy of Normandy, which ;ave to its leader William 50,000 men or the battle at Hastings, which established his domination over England. Two words which impressed in the Norman consciousness appeared on the . Royal escutcheon ‘Dieu et Mon (Droit.’ It is their unswerving fidelity 1 to these two essential principles of life i which assured their survival. Under ;the aegis of this device the yare able, in changing their allegiance, to exclaim like knights of old, ‘Le Roi est 'mort! Vice le Roil’ So to-day, without hesitation, from loyal hearts they greet Your Majesty with ‘Vive le ' Roi!’ ” ■