The Waikato Times With which lo Incorporated The Waikato Argus- WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3,193 i. KING GEORGE V.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18345, 3 June 1931, Page 6

The Waikato Times With which lo Incorporated The Waikato ArgusWEDNESDAY, JUNE 3,193 i. KING GEORGE V.

To-day His Majesty the King celebrates the sixty-sixth anniversary of his birth. Throughout the Empire there can but he a feeling of sincere relief and deep gratification that he has so successfully withstood the grievous ills which assailed him during the past year that ho is enabled to go his chosen way among nis people. To his subjects in the Mother Country His Majesty has endeared himself through that happy gift which makes him the friend of men, women and children in all walks of life, regardless of political opinion or creedBeyond that, and the even more far reaching, Is that sense of loyalty which he has unconsciously imbued In all those who dwell under the British flag with the exception of certain elements in India and to an infinitely less degree, South Africa. At that even in those countries It is not so much a sense of disloyalty to His Majesty in person, to whom all are united in their respect, but to the position as head of what they regard as a foreign State, His marvellous Influence over the wholo of the population of the British Commonwealth of Nations or Empire, call It what you. will, Is as indefinable as it .Is certain and Is one of the chief 'bonds which hold the whole together. The deep affection which exists towards the Sovereign contributes in no small measure to the unity of Empire which the other nations so marvel at. Apart altogether from this the King has shown that far from being a mere figurehead he 'can,- and does, exercise a power for the good of bis realm. Upon more than one occasion his strong statecraft has been evidenced, and more than once a few wisdom bearing words of his have smoothed out vexatious difficulties in no case more notably, perhaps, than in the settlement of the Irish question. The governing fact about King George is that be is a sailor. He was trained not for a throne, but for the quarterdeck of a man-o-war. During those formative years lie was tossing about Ihc Seven Seas, swarming up the yardarm or sinking a fire, calling at slrange parls in far off lands, learning the rough lessons of the sea, and sharing llie wholesome comradeship of plain men. It was a hard school; hut no King ever had a better. It brought him face to face with realities, lie saw the meaning of duty and discipline, learned lo respect those who labour with their hands, and entered into liie life of the common people- He owes this advantage to the fact that he had the good fortune not to Ik

born the heir to the throne. He escaped the artificial training of monarchs In the making. There is another phase of his character which Is the product of his upbringing. He is the first King of Greater Britain. 1-Ils father’s orbit was the Continent, and the fool were the courts of Europe. King George is "All British." We boast of the Empire on which the sun never sets, but until now we have never had a King who had seen the Empire. King George knows it probably as well as any man of his time. It is not a splash of colour on the map, but a reality translated into terms of city and plain, mountain, veldt, and prairie, with the heaving seas between. To bring to us more fully, if possible, the realisation of what that Empire is, and means, a distinguished Irishman, the late Ear] of Meath,' founded Empire Day. Not as a day for blatant jingoism or narrow chauvanlsm, but as a day when through various means we could, in the knowledge of the great heritage Invested in us and the'vast power for the good invested in the Empire, give some concrete expression of the •realisation.