Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1939. ROYALTY IN AMERICA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1939. ROYALTY IN AMERICA.

JN their tour of Canada and the United States which opens with their landing at Quebec today, their Majesties the King and Queen may in a number of ways make history. New ground of history is broken in any event in the fact that no reigning monarch of the United Kingdom has ever before set foot on American soil. If the entirely new departure thus made in a time of world emergency needed any apology, it would be justified a thousand times by the excellent purpose it is capable of serving, in throwing into high, relief, not only the essential unity of the British Empire, but the friendship that links the two great sections of the English-speaking race.

It has been well said, that in traversing Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific, travelling “through vast prairie territories which reduce the United Kingdom to the size of a pocket-handkerchief, the King will be demonstrating that the Crown is the constitutional link between partners in the Empire.” In Canada, his Majesty will be primarily King of Canada. In his tour of that Dominion and in his visit to the United States he will be attended, not by the British Foreign Minister, but by the Canadian Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mr Mackenzie King.

The King and Queen without doubt will be personally popular and will be welcomed most heartily at every stage of their tour, but the event has at the same time a larger significance as it bears on Imperial relationships and on the outlook in world affairs. No British Dominion has gone further than Canada in claiming assertively an autonomy that borders at least on independence, but it is predicted confidently that the Royal visit will do much to dispel any clouds of “little Canadianism” that have gathered in recent years.

Far as it is from being concerned in any way with treatymaking or formal exchanges, the visit of the King and Queen to the United States may be expected also to strengthen further the tide of opinion already rising strongly in that country in favour of a united stand with other democracies against world forces of reaction and aggression. As an unforced and generous gesture in a time of world turmoil, the Royal tour may be counted upon all the more confidently to serve a great purpose since there is in it no element of anxious or self-seeking appeal. It affords simply an opportunity for the people of the leading British Dominion and those of the world’s greatest democracy to express spontaneously what is in their hearts, and it need not be doubted that tlie outcome . will be encouraging and invigorating to all the nations of the world that stand for liberty and for the advancement of human welfare.