THE KING'S GENIUS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9046, 4 February 1908, Page 6

THE KING'S GENIUS.

HIS GIFT FOR INTERPRETING THE PUBLIC MIND. MR HALDANE'S TRIBUTE. Mr Haldane, Secretary for War, unveiled at the new buildings of University College School, Hampstead, in December last, a statue of the King, erected over the entrance. The statue depicts the King in coronation robes, and has been presented by Mr Arnold Mitchell, the architect, who designed the new buildings. Mr Haldane said: It was not easy for a Minister to speak of matters connected with the Sovereign which had been the subject of a personal interview without transgressing the Jimit3 of what was constitutional, but he might safely say that the interest of the King in the cause of the education of his people was not only a deep interest but a hereditary interest. He often thought that those who looked at them from across the sea were very apt to misunderstand the position of a Sovereign in this country. Because a monarch was a constitutional monarch there were some people who assumed that he took no part, took no initiative, in the business of government. There never was a more profound mistake. A monarch had nowadays to study closely the tendencies and the habits of mind and the resolution of his people. One characteristic of the King was tha gift he had for interpreting the public mind. (Applause). He was deeply interested in education, the Army, the Navy, in foreign affairs, and in every department of government. And in all of those his great quality was the capacity of taking the initiative and yet being in complete harmony not only with his Ministers, but with his parliament and with his people. When the constitutional Sovereign had the gift of doing rthat he was the greatest of all Sovereigns, and the most powerful of all Sovereigns. (Appaluse). He bad the nation behind him, and his action w as the action of the nation.