WELLINGTON ECHOES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 389, 14 May 1910, Page 7

WELLINGTON ECHOES

THE KING IS DEAD. (From our Special Correspondent). Wellington, May 9. Writing under the shadow of the halfmasted Hags, what can I tell you except that the news of the King's death has made a profound sensation in the city? The news crept into the street a.bout midday on Saturday, people stopping each other to know if it were true. Then the newspapers got sheets in their windows, and presently the Hags Hying halfmast on Parliament House and the Government Buildings showed that the ollicial -information had: been received. By half-past three in the afternoon every Legislative Councillor and every M.P. had a telegram from the Prime Minister: "With profound regret I convey to- you the sad of the death of our beloved King." iiy this time the Mayor had got the citizens to close their places of business, the flags were -half-mast on all the consulates and many private offices, and the city was given lip to gloom. Friday night's paper had somewhat prepared the public mind for the shock, by reason of the sudden depressive bulletins from the palace. But no one dreamt that there was no chance, all expecting to hear that the King's excellent constitution was pulling him through another of the serious illnesses to which fate had subjected him. The shock of the death was therefore very severe. Ministers all cancelled their engagements at once, and made arrangements to reach Wellington as early as possible to take part in the funeral celebration now being arranged after the manner of the ceremony devoted to the memory of the great Queen a few days after her death. It seems to most of us hut yesterday since that ceremony saddened -all of us so deeply. j

THE LOYALTY OF THE EMPIRE. These are the occasions when the lovaltv of the Empire is .tested; at least it "is the fashion to say so. Throughout our history as a colony and a Dominion there have been, as there now are, men believing implicitly in the loyalty of the people. The first public man to assert the belief uncompromisingly was Lord Jvorman.by, and he did so most prominently on the occasion of the visit to Melbourne, during his Governorship of Victoria, of the Royal Princes in the Bacchante. That fervent profession has not been forgotten by the present King —George V.—who heard it and has seen it verified on many occasions. The most notable of these were the South African war, when so many contingents were sent to the battlefields, and his own visit as Duke of York to the outlying dominions' of his father's Empire. We may well link the profound feelings of to-day with those great manifestations. What else could we do in face of the special pains everywhere taken among us to impress upon the young people the real meaning of the Empire? The school (lsviis, the '"Empire Days." the national singing of the National Anthem, and many other things have done their »viork, we are entitled to believe. If anyone doubts the reality of the apparent results I have a story for him of Saturday last, which came under my own observation. A boy of twelve, a member of the Boy Scouts, rushed into his father's house,' pale and excited, to tell the news he had just heard of the King's death, rushed out again at once, and was subsequently found in the garden sitting beside a half-mast flag which he himself had fixed up, crying bitterlv. How many more boys are there who have had the personality of the head borne in upon them like that? I think it is -safe to say that their name is lesion. Young New Zealand has taken his father at his word whenever he has talked to him about the Empire and the King: It is true at last that sentiment is the strongest thing in all the workl. Hence it is that the noble tributes of all the churches on Sunday were listened to with such depth of attention, hence the solemn hearing of the various dirges played in the churches, hence the close attention paid to the long, admirably compiled and highly pitched reviews published by the newspapers. The lives of the sovereigns of our time have created that loyalty, the reality of which their deaths most clearly demonstrate.

long live THE KING! It is this fact which in a special degree 'both encourages the new King to reign and sljpws him the best manner of doing, so.' That he has begun as well as his illustrious father began is proved by .his first speech. It is as noble a speech as the one his father del'veied on the occasion of his undertaking the responsibility of his tremendous oflicc. Pitched in the .same key, let us hope it may be followed by a similar career o* that recorded by the First Geirolcmcn < f the world, and the greatest peaecrnakei it has seen for many years. The augury is good. George the 'Fifth has referred to °his father as not only King aiiii Father, but as Friend. It is a.ll announcement that he has received good counsel for his guidance in the right path. He comes to the throne a a (crave crisis in the constitutional all i.is of his kingdom, while the work of arm-1 ed men around his kingdom require the | steadying force of good counsel and. clear thought, thorough tact and impartial justice guided .by exception;'., ex 1 perieiice, to save it from the hwrwr* ol war. His father was equal to >;he constitutional crisis, and he supplied tile! world of armed men with its utmost need. He is the friend of his father,! and being a man of mature :>.*? he nmyj be regarded as having fallen heir to nisj experience, unrivalled, as it va-;, as well! as to bis station. That w.wnc.- nc-o-nn in the great Queen, and being transmittecl to her great son was double;!.: May wo hope that with the t'ur.l move it may be proportionately it>cri;a<sed 1, Why not? More apparently unpromising "Prince of Wales material has been converted into good stuff of kingship hv the addition of responsibility. J * * * * 1 THE GOVERNOR. We are all wondering what r-nnsed the new Governor to accept the title of Islington. It was announced at first that he had not taken it, but that he was to be known in the peerage f.'.r the future as Lord Islington, after some district m Devon where he has rmu'h land. It turns out. however, that ho his after all taken the title whbh reminds lovers of a certain "Bailiff's dauuV,- of Islington," who was a gr.nt with our forefathers. I once heard the f«m- ; ous Madame Pattv—who was her?rif the ,wenius of hallad-singmg--declaim| the voung lady's cans*. and it struck me as nothing short, of saline. In the hands of other artistes I must tonicss the lady has never seemed halt fo charming. That may be the result of ,a great personality or tin inability of a small one in nivlerstin-l tiling?. I wil. not labor tlie point.

I The question remains- what, mdmed the Governor to go tov.ai .U 1 lie .•jonbcin heights of London for vile tit i« of bis newi peerage? There are many things for which this estwhile suburb of London is famous. There were, for in-' stance, the -ancient inns—the "Angel" and the "Peacock"—which were in all the glow of their glory when the north coaches used to start from their doors. They retained some of that prestige after the railways had blotted out the great vehicles of a lumbering day. But now, when nothing of tliem remains but their names —the comfortable, portly, well sanded old houses having been superseded by gin palaces of the most flar- 1 ing order, winch are drinking dens par excellence—all is forgotten that is not : held in contempt. j Then there is the Royal Agricultural' Hall in High street of Islington 'where j are held the great winter cattle show, and the annual summer horse show, not I less celebrated. This is an enormous j structure covering no less than three I acres. Peck was the builder, in 1801, and the main hall, roofed with glass, I is 384 feet by 217 feet. j Not far off is the Sadler's Welis j Theatre reminiscent of the music hall of i Charles the Second's time, where Pepys I used to make merry and hold- lortli when he hied himself to the fashionable suburb. In Islington Green stands the statute of Sir Hugh Myddleton, who in the first years of King James I. made the "New River," supplying London with I the best water it then knew, and there is none better now. By the way, Sadjlers Wells Theatre reminds one of many people nvith 'names that reverberate in the brain. Garibaldi, to wit, and Charles Dibdin, Mr. Greenwood Phelps' great tragedian, who made the place the "home of legitimate drama," and the immortal Mr. Vincent Crummies, who | aspired to star there, but who didn't.' There is somewhere in this direction C'u!io.!',i;ry lower, where Goldsmith wrote the immortal ''Vicar" while tak- i ing refuge from importune creditors. -Here also lived the compiler of the first encyclopedia, whose name, curiously enough, was Chambers. And not far from the northern boundary of the suburb i« Highgate, where the Cockney of festive temperament used to go to be |\vorn—the famous oath over which our fathers -used to make merry was: I "Never to walk when you can ride; i never to drink small beer when you can I get ale; never to kiss the maid when | you - can kiss the mistress, unless yon | really like her or one of the commoner , articles better.-''' hi the cemetery at I Highgate are maiij - famous names— I Lyndhurst, Faraday, Coleridge (the I poet), George Eliot (greatest of novel-j ists), Mrs. Henry Woods, and others of i -lesser note.

It was not for any of these memories, surely, nor for the recollection of the dairies, cheese-cakes ami buns of the ilavs of tlie Stuarts and tile earlier ('.leorges for •which this suburb was famous. that we owe the title of Lord Islington. Neither can we depend on the theory that it is descended from the ''Bailiff's Daughter." We roust, suppose that he has some valuable freeholds in this whilom suburb. But as we have the very best accounts of him, it really matters nothing how he came to get his title.

THE PRIME MINISTER. The town is busv, or rather was before Saturday, talking busily of the speech delivered in the South bv the ■ Prime Minister. His friends say it is the best ante-sessional ever delivered by any Prime Minister in the Dominion. His enemies, while impressed, declare that he has sadly disappointed them about economy. To this his friends reply that the promise of a saving of £250.000 is proved to have been kept, hut that the apparent saving on the year i» only £98,000, because oilier services whicht returned increased revenue were necessarily -more expensive. Between these there is controversy. All unite in doini homage to the Prime Minister for the announcement of intention to arrange for paying off the national debt, and everyone says how joily easy the thing seem? to be after all. Most people also applaud the extension of the compulsory service age. the exceptions being chiefly those who do not 'Want service at all and those who want every man to be drilled every year for forty years. You, may pay your money and you may take your choice.