The Daily News. THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1911. THE CORONATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 334, 22 June 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1911. THE CORONATION.

It is but little more than a year since Edward the Peacemaker, the most notable figure in the world and ruler of history's greatest Empire, passed to liis rest. It was perhaps difficult for the sorrowing people of the Empire to efface the portraits of the great King and his Queen-Consort and to substitute those of his son and his son's princess. But to-day the people of the vast Empire over which George V. reigns hold festi-

val and rejoice that a worthy monarch will now wear the .crown of his ancestors. The impressive funeral ceremonies for the late King gave rise to objections that expensive splendor, the demonstration of armed force, and the ornate panoply and show was unnecessary. But demonstration has always been dear to all people, and power must be made apparent to be felt. In the coronation of a king the obvious object is to impress the people whose head he is with the power represented by the Crown. But in the British Empire personal regard, quite apart from awe of power, has supplanted the'old notion .that a King was apart, pedestalled and fearful. Queen Victoria, King Edward VII. and King George V. come nearer to the ideal as democratic Sovereigns than any of their predecessors. King Edward particularly was the people's friend. They loved him' no less as a man than as a monarch, and it has been obvious during the thirteen months his successor has held his great trust that King George is fulfilling his duties as King Edward would have him do. King George is the only British monarch who has really seen his Empire and who is- able to understand the power he represents in his single person. He came to the throne at a time when there was social revolution within the Empire, when the relations between many countries were strained, and when diplomatic mistakes might have involved consequences too terrible to think of. Eis touching promise made in the presence of a great sorrow, that he would use his life in the service of the people, was one that involved a greater sacrifice than can possibly be conceived by people who are fortunate enough to escape kingship, The tremendous weight of his Imperial responsibilities have not dismayed him. Ee is a workman with a never-ending itask, a personage on which the light of an almost intolerable publicity for ever shines, a man whose every action is a matter of mopient. And so a king must be a worker in the best sense of the term, untiring and faithful—a diplomat holding the loose ends of a thousand international and Imperial problems in his grasp, a man disciplined to sink his own personal feelings and to shape every action to the necessities of his great position. The King has been trained in the finest school of discipline in all the world—the Royal Navy. He is naturally unobtrusive, studious, selfabnegatory. kind to all. Eis Queen-Con-sort has the most difficult position a woman could hold, and is queenly—and womanly and motherly, which is the best of all. And if we are not monarchists or Imperialists we have to remember that King George can't help being King, that the accident of his birth places on him the responsibility of a position that he must live up to and work for. If we are loyalists we arc glad that the promise of the youth of the sailor prince has been realised in the crowned King. To-day the Empire rings with the name of King George. In every climate, by many peoples, the King is acclaimed as representing the earth's most potent Empire. We in its furthest outpost, animated by the feeling that George V. personifies the idea of Empire, exclaim with fervor, "God save the King!"