THAT VICE – REGAL KISS. Lord Plunket's Priceless Privilege.

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 200, 30 April 1904, Page 6

THAT VICE - REGAL KISS. Lord Plunket's Priceless Privilege.

LORD PLUNKET will be looked upon with reverence and respect during his Governorship of New Zealand as the lucky man who imprinted a chaste salute upon the hand of Our Sovereign Lord the King. Just because particulars of the delightful kissing ceremony in connection with previous vice-regal appointments have not been cabled out to us, as they have in Plunket's case, it may be thought that our ex- Governors have not been allowed that priceless mark of royal favour. The probability is

that all of them have had the extreme ecstacy of kissing the hand of a real live monarch. • * • Colonial people, in their ignorance, merely giggled when they read that our new Governor kissed King Edward's hand. They don't appreciate the intense importance of the salute. However, these ceremonies have a certain significance in the discipling and impressing effect over the minds of the "lower orders." It is because the cable-man does not quite know whether we in New Zealand are " lower orders "or no that he doesn't elaborate the news of Plunket's kiss. The pomp and pantomim eof State ceremonies have their uses. A criminal population far in excess of the law, and who could override all control, tremble at the sight of a blue helmet. One glimpse of a rather ridiculous wig stuck on the summit of a physically feeble judge, sends cold shivers down the back of the wrongdoer who, whether with hordes and allies, is appalled by the ponderosity of the proceedings that make him bite the dust. Who hasn't felt a thrill at the mere touch of a new knight's hand, or the spectacle of a real live lord in a bullion-covered suit ? Seat the lord in a public bath alongside Bill Smith, the navvy, and the value of either as an awe-inspiring spectacle would be with Bill ; but Bill would possibly grovel in the dust, and throw his hat three stories high at the same form bullion-encrusted. • • • We don't mind Lord Plunket kissing King Edward's hand. It gratifies Plunket. It is a condescension from a King who cannot help being one. It is awfully interesting to his colonial subjects. It is exactly the sort of news we crave after, and whets our appetite for more. And Lord Plunket will be able to hand down the narrative of " How I kissed King Edward r the Peacemaker." There would be a new savour to life if this sort of thing happened commonly. We can imagine the sensation that would pass through the common herd on seeing a temporary clerk kneeling and lifting the foot of the responsible Minister, and placing it on the back of his neck in subjection. What more animating to the loyal crowd than for a posse of farmers to file past Minister Tarn Duncan, for instance, and implant a full flavoured smack each upon his marble brow ? And the thousand and one recipients of purses of sovereigns ! Surely they might demonstrate their thanks by following the example of Lord Plunket, and kiss the hand that rewarded them ? • * * It may have been that the Plunket kiss really wasn't a State formality after all, but that the warm-hearted Irish peer threw it in as a thankoffering and a hint that he thought the New Zealand billet was worth having. There is no evidence to show that King Edward resented the use made of his royal hand, or that the responsible Ministers thought meanly of our new Governor for not serving them all alike. Thank goodness we have newspaper cable-men who don't let us miss these important events. It is thus that history is made.