GARTER FOR EMPEROR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 623, 27 March 1929, Page 9

GARTER FOR EMPEROR

DUKE’S VISIT TO TOKYO JAPAN’S APPRECIATION British Official Wireless RUGBY, Tuesday. The Duke of Gloucester will leave London on Friday for Japan, to invest the Emperor Hirohito with the insignia of the Order of the Garter. He will make the voyage in a cruiser, and is expected to arrive in Tokyo on May 2. The Duke’s mission is being undertaken on behalf of King George. The Order of the Garter is the highest and oldest in Britain. Prince Tokugawa, President of the Japanese House of Peers, in a letter to the “Japan Advertiser,” gives expression to the pleasure felt in the most influential circles in Japan. He calls the King’s act a most important event, which will cement the good relations of the two island empires, and continues: “Although the Anglo-Japanese Alliance has ceased to exist as a result of the Washington Conference, its spirit ought never to cease. I always think and hope that not only an AngloJapanese alliance, but a triple entente cordiale of England, America, and Japan will be formed, by which means peace in the Orient can be secured. I am sure Lord Balfour and Sir Auckland Geddes will not forget what I told them at Washington in 1921.” The prominence with which the news is displayed, and the publication of many special articles extolling the age and dignity of the order, shows that the Japanese Press understands and appreciates King George’s action. Official opinion, as summed up by a high authority, is that this is not only a fresh mark of the friendship which has subsisted between the British and Japanese Royal Houses since the overthrow of the Shogun, but a gratifying indication that England’s cordiality toward Japan has not diminished. The Order of the Garter was instituted in 1349 bv King Edward 111. Of the 44 Knights of the Order, only one. Sir Austen Chamberlain, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is a commoner. The others are kings or peers.