UNION JACK AND STARS AND STRIPES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1939, Page 8

UNION JACK AND STARS AND STRIPES

First Welcome of King and Queen to United States MEMORABLE SCENES IN HISTORIC SETTING THEIR MAJESTIES AT NIAGARA By Telegraph. —Press Association/ -Copyright. (Received This Day, 12.5 p.m.) NIAGARA FALLS, June 7. In this cradle of Canadian achievement, where monuments on many hills chronicle three centuries of history, the international demonstration today was particularly significant. From the grizzled ruins of the Canadian Fort Erie, where the boundary of the Niagara River begins from the hilly field of the sanguinary Battle of Lundy’s Lane, in 1814, and from the American Fort Niagara, where the stream flows to Lake Ontario, the Union Jack and Stars and Stripes flew side by side. In the streets of the city of. Niagara Falls, Americans joined in the National Anthem and cheered, to the echo of Niagara Canyon, the Royal couple whose Canadian tour has drawn expressions of loyalty and affection from the remotest corners of the Dominion. The Queen had not seen the falls previously. The King visited them with a party of midshipmen from HALS. Cumberland in 1913. As a midshipman, the King crossed the Honeymoon Bridge, but he could not take the,Queen to that sentimental span, as it has gone for many years, but he did take her to the Table Rock, where also he stood as a youth. It is only half the rock it was then.- He also showed the Queen where a wire was strung when Blondin crossed in the presence of the King’s grandfather, King Edward VII. At the new General Brock Hotel, replacing Clifton House, where he stayed when he was “Mr Johnstone,” the King found Mr Vernon Cardy, who served him years before as Clifton House manager. Their Majesties dined informally with' the United States Minister to Canada, Mr Daniel Roper and Airs Roper, in the Rainbow Room at the top of the General Brock Hotel, and sat at a horseshoe table overlooking both the Canadian and American falls. During the dinner 1,400 million candle-power floodlights illuminating the falls were turned on. Then their Majesties appeared on the balcony to greet ten thousand school children massed below. Their Majesties reached Niagara after one of the most strenuous days of 'the tour. They received addresses and drove through the streets of London, Ingersoll, ’Woodstock, Brantford, Hamilton and StCatherine’s. As occurred yesterday, the train proceeded throughout the day through an almost unbroken lane of cheering people. At Brantford, which is the hub of a huge reserve which in 1784 Britain presented to the Six Nations Indians for loyalty during the American Revolution, the Queen signed a Bible given to the Indians by Queen Anne in 1712. Among the crowd was Angus McChellan, his wife and a five-months-old baby, who flew 1,100 miles from the Yellowknife North-West Territory to Timmins, Ontario, and then travelled by train 500 miles to Brantford. Their Majesties entered cars at St Catherine’s and drove fourteen miles to Niagara by a new four-lane highway. En route, an electric eye operated by the Royal car dropped a string of flags to christen the road “Queen Elizabeth Way.” The sight of the Union Jack flying, with the Stars and Stripes on Fort Niagara across the river, to symbolise 125 years of peace, was the first welcome from the United States.