DUKE OF WINDSOR'S PLEA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 83, 27 July 1942, Page 2

DUKE OF WINDSOR'S PLEA

"THE MOMENT WAS UNHAPPILY CHOSEN"

From a room in Windsor Castle on the night of December 11, 193(5', E.Iward VIII toid the world of .his decision to abdicate so that "at long last" he might marry the "woman I love." These were the last wordslie broadcast as King.

Ever si nee the abdiction, the National Broadcasting Company had offered to place its facilities at Edward's service whenever he wished. Largely due to pressure from London —and because ol unpleasant publicity following the collapse of his plans to visit the United States 18 months ago—the Duke kept quiet. Sunday, however, NBC's New York office announced that at long last Elward would speak—from Verdun after a tour of the batt'e(ields. where fuSO, COO Frenchmen and Germans perished in 10 V,5.

Barely 21 hours earlier King George and Queen Elizabeth had sailed lor Canada and the United States. Officially, however, London took no notice of the Duke's decision to span the Atlantic with words before his brother arrived in person. And the semi-official British Broadcasting Corporation refused to relay the address although individual Britons —including the King and Queen— could easily tune in with short-wave sets.

London papers assailed the Duke's timing. The Evening News called it "at best . . . ill-timed ... at

worst . . . tasteless," while The Daily Express of Lord Beavorbrook, one of Edward's strongest supporters during the abdiction crisis, said: •'The moment was unhappily chos-

cn." Yfct the speech proved to be as innocuous and well-intentioned as a House of Lords debate. Speaking from a small hotel near the battlefields, the Duke almost wistfully recalled that, l'or two and one-half years he had '■deliberately .kept out of public affairs," ami that he spoke "for no one but myself.' But, as 'a soldier of the last war," he felt that the "manifest danger" of another conflict made it necessary for him to break his "self-imposed sil-

ence" with an appeal for peace. The most nearly concrete suggestion lie made sounded like a curious fvsho of Chamberlain's appeasement policy. Edward pointed out that inter'nationa! understanding" must lie "deliberately sought and negotiated," and Ik; deplored the "use of such terms as encirclement and aggression."