PRESS VIEWS

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 303, 7 December 1936, Page 5

PRESS VIEWS

KING AND SABINET. RIGHTS AND WRONGS. New Zealand Opinions Of Situation in Britain. •'None will challenge the personal right of the King to marry as his heart dictates, and on this .aspect the feeling of his people is fully sympathetic,” says the New Zealand Herald in a leading! article. , “However, another and very grave aspect, is presented by the fact that he is King, and as such is not merely a part of the British Constitution, but also its most eminent and most important, part. For him to contract a marriage incompatible in any way with his position is a fundamentally objectionable step. "Tn the bewilderment that has come suddenly upon the nation a sense of deep concern for him is poignantly felt. Nevertheless, delicate and grave as the situation is for him, it is more so for the nation. In his own hands

the issue supremely rests, y’et there

cannot, in the painful circumstances, ; be any other wish than that the in- ' (crests of the great British Common- | wealth, and of the Throne that is I the most splendid in the earth, shall | in the outsome be supremely' consult- ! ed.” POPULAR MONARCH. The Christchurch Press says; “The public anxiety created will be not less keen in the Dominions 1 than in Great Britain, for the Crown is the one constitutional link left to •the British Commonwealth of Nations. Moreover, the present King has made the Crown something more than a symbol to the British peoples overseas. “A,s Prtrtce of Wales he visited every Dominion and acquired, be>sides a remarkable popularity, an unrivalled knowledge of Imperial problems. No English King has ever had a greater opportunity to do good; and it will be the earnest desire of all his subjects that this opportunity will ■ not be lost or impaired by the present crisis. ‘‘lndeed, the strength of this desire is sufficient justification for feeling certain that, whatever turn events may take, the Crown as an institution Avill not be weakened ”

HIS SUCCESSOR? “Whatever .the personal outcome of this episode,” says the Dominion, “it will increase the immediate difficulties of the Sovereign’s post. ' “King Edward, if he should elect to accept the advice of his Ministers, or if King Edward should elect to abdicate, his successor will require every zivailable gift of kingship to restore the damaged fabric of the Monarchy. For that task King Edward’s training, experience and popularity give him the advantage over his brother the’ Duke of York, who is first in line of succession ,but has been much less prominently in the public eye than the King.

“In the event of the Duke of York | succeeding, however, the Empire j would have a Queen whom it could | admire and love,; while as heir-pre-I sumptive the Princess Elizabeth i would be assured of the devotion of j half the world. I “Those possibilities and probabili- , ties must be called into account by j the King if he would be true to, his i accession declaration. His duty to j ihe high estate into which he was I born demands that he lake the long j view; on the one band are his own j wishes of the moment, on the other the lasting welfare of the British I I Commonwealth. To choose between ; lhem may not be easy for a man who, i af'er all, is cast in the common mould ■ I of men; but a King who enjoys the I | trust of his people cannot in honour ! desert them unless ho is convinced that they will not. suffer by the change.” “FIND A WAY.” The Christchurch Star-Sun says: “The wisest comment that has been made on the episode is that of the News-Chronicle, which sets out that it. is for the King and the King alone ■to say who .shall he his life partner, but it is for Parliament to say who shall be queen of England, and that if the King feels that, his happiness depends on the marriage on which he I has set his mind a way' must be j found for him. “This is what the people of the ’ Empire would wish. “It would not seem incongruous for the most democratic of ihe Kings ot England to marry a commoner, if she were an Englishwoman.”