ACTUAL FORM OF OATH

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 366, 22 February 1937, Page 5

ACTUAL FORM OF OATH

WHAT KING SWEARS

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

New Conditions Require New

Procedure.

(British Official Wireless.) Received 1.30 p.m. Rugby, February 20,

Commenting on the changes in the Coronation Oath, the Manchester Guardian says that they are another instance of the way in which even the most historic of English constitutional usages are modified to meet new conditions. Changes have become necessary since 1911 owing to the constitutional position which has arisen from the new status of the Dominions under the Statute of Westminster.

The new form of oath has been approved after discussion between the United Kingdom Governments and the Dominions’ Governments. The text of the first portion of the Coronation Oath in order to meet the changed constitutional position is to be as follows: —

“Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, and all your possessions and other territories, to any of them belonging or pertaintaining to, and of your Empire of Indta, according to their respective laws and customs?”

No alteration has been made in the second part, in which the King swears he will, according to his power, cause law and justice in mercy be executed in all his judgments.

The religious part of the oath has bee nslightly modified so as to limit to the Unite.d Kingdom the King’s undertaking to maintain the Protestant reformed religion established by law. Regarding this modification, the Guardian remarks that it is manifest that though the Protestant character of the monarchy was once its most vital characteristic, it has now ceased to be an irritant challenge to those of other faiths.

LONDON VIEW.

Phrasing Should be Debated

in Commons.

Press Association—Copyright. Received 11.20 a.m. London, February 21. “Our fears that the King’s pledge to maintain the Protestant reformed religion might be altered have been allayed,” says Mr J. A. Kensit, of the Protestant Truth Society, “but should the phrasing be altered by Downing Street without debate in Parliament, while it is only reasonable to recognise in the oath the altered status of the Dominions, yet on a future occasion, because of this precedent, vital words might be altered.

"The Archbishop of Canterbury is in an anomalous position, exacting from the King an oath to do something he fails to do himself. I am writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury asking him to ask the King, ‘Will you do the utmost in your power to maintain the Protestant reformed religion established by Ihw’?”

Dominions Now Belong To

Themselves.

Press Association—Copyright, Received 10.45 a.m.

London, February 21

Commenting on the Coronation Oath, the Observer says: “The woj-d Dominions now has less general meaning than formerly. The Dominions do not belong to the United Kingdom as the old phraseology had it ,but only to themselves. The guarantee for the maintenance of the Protestant reformed religion is now expressly limited to the United Kingdom, where its historical significance resides.”

The Sunday Times says: “The oath does not merely accord with the fact of His Majesty’s multiple kingship, but places it on record before the world.”