A Green Christmas

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19461, 28 December 1934, Page 5

A Green Christmas

BRITAIN’S HOME FESTIVAL. ATMOSPHERE OF OPTIMISM. HIS MAJESTY'S BROADCAST. (Official Wireless.; (Received Dec. 28, 12.45 p.rn.) RUGBY,'Dec. * . . Christmas, the “festival of the family,” as Ills Majesty 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 lias been tire Case for some years. The holiday was without news for politics were temporarily forgotten. There was a happy absence of those calamities Which so often comprise the 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, but most people stayed at.home. The roads were singularly free from traffic. The King’s Message. . As In the case of the two preceding years, the great event on Christmas Day was the King’s broadcast, and the programme of Empire greetings. The King’s short message had impressive simplicity and sincerity, and was addressed to all members of the Empire family. There were special greetings' to the Dominions “ through whom the family has become a fellowship of free nations,” to the far distant colonies) and to peoples of India, to whom His Majesty sent an assurance of his constant care for them and 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, " the clouds are lifting. We have still our own troubles to meet, but if we meet them ill a family spirit they will be overcome for private and party interests will be controlled by care for the whole community." In a moving passage at the end of the message the King said: “ May 1 add, very simply and sincerely, that if I’ may he regarded as in some true sense the head of this great and widespread family, sharing its life and sustained by its affections, this will be full reward for the long and sometimes anxious labours of my reign of wellnigh live and twenty years.

“As I sit In my own homo, I am thinking of the great multitudes who are listening to my voice, whether they be In British homes or In far-off regions of the world, for you all, and specially for your children, I wish a happy Ohrlstmas. 11 1 commend you to the father of whom every family In heaven ' and on earth is named, God bless you all 1 .” Empire Broadcast. The Empire broadcast which preceded the King’s message heightened the effect of his words. Listeners wore taken without a mordent's wait from one extremity of the Empire to the other, from Australia to Canada, from the North-west Frontier of India to Rhodesia, and little talks from these places gave an extraordinary effect of unity which has overcome distance. Not-the least impressive was the concluding item from llminglon, a small central village in Britain where an old shepherd who had never visited London or seen the sea told in broad dialect of his life on the Colswold llills.