NATIONAL FLAGS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3530, 28 August 1926, Page 4

NATIONAL FLAGS.

EVOLUTION OF DESIGNS. INFLUENCES OF THE PAST. With all respect to the ensigns which great nations have suddenly created, it may be said that a national flag needs time to appeal to national sentiment and command national loyalty and in the passing of time is apt to evolve into something different from the original design (remarks the London “Daily Telegraph”), discussing the proposed new South African flag. Some historians would add (confidently that if it is to he truly national it must derive from emblems already . well-known and honoured bv the nation. The Union Jack itself is something which was not made, but grew. That the combination of the crosses is the consequence of Acts of Parliament is, of 'course, true, but is only part of the truth. Not statute law, but the fact of the union of the peoples of the British Isles to build up the British State is the effective cause of the Union Jack. Even if we take the famous flags which have been devised for the sudden emergence of a new State of a new Constitution, Ave still find the influence of ’the past and the •changes of growth. A hundred and fifty years ago the Congress of the United States 1 created the Stars and Stripes. It may or may not lie an irrelevant fact that the arms of George Washington were a white shield with red 1 bars and red stars. What is certain ; is that for half a century the 'contents, of the flag were continually changing, though the general, design remained. Where the French Republic found t lie idea of tbo tri--1 colour is still disputed. There is 1 admirable ancient tradition for the association of each of the three colours with France. When Clovis and Charlemagne rode out to battle it was under the blue hood of fet. Martin. In the Middle Ages, the banner of St. Dennis, instead of St. Martin became the national flag, the oviflamme, and that was red. The banner of the House of Bourbon was white. But red, white and blue arc also the colours of the City of Paris and the House of Orleans. Whatever men thought as they first saluted the tricolour, it was not the emblem of the Revolution and the Republic; it spoke of old achievements and old loyalties. It has survived the eagles, and the bees which Napoleon put on it, being plain tricolour and Republican. When a (lag had to be devised 00 years ago for that North German Confederacy out of which Bismarck made the German Empire, its designers used the colours of the House of Hohcnzollern, black and white, and joined with them the red and Avhite ensign of the Hansa towns, which once ruled the trade of the northern seas. So was made that black, Avhite and red flag which the German Republic changed to black, red and yellow, but which is still important enough to bring down Cabinets and change Chancellors.