The Itinerary

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 480, 3 September 1948, Page 5

The Itinerary

HE mest important. sentence in the Prime Minister’s statement on the Royal Family’s itinerary will probably prove to be these five words: "No variation can be made." It would have, been intolerable to have had public bickerings over the claims of different localities for more time or a different time, even if there had been a chance that the result would have been general agreement. There is never any chance of satisfying everybody in such a situation, and it would have been calamitous to try. The important question is not who sees the King first, but who will not be able to see him with a reasonable effort and at reasonable cost. We of course all want him to see us too-to see where we live, and how, what our district has of grandeur or quiet beauty, and what our reactions. are to the whole purpose of his exhausting journey. But it does not matter in the least ‘in what order he sees us or we see him, and it does matter that we should be found when he does come to be reasonable human beings who can swallow local disappointments and meet him smiling and satisfied. Meanwhile it is worth plotting the route on a map to get a God’s-eye view of the development of New Zealand in a hundred years. Most of us forget that settlement still clings to the coast-or to a coastal strip seldom as much as 50 miles deep. To meet four of his people out of five the King has seldom to go farther inland than a bird will fly at sunset to roost. The fifth person whom he will thus miss is certainly most important: he is the man who has pushed farthest into the wilderness, and fought and won the loneliest battle. The King will particularly wish to see him, to see his wife and his children, and let them feel his interest in them. But that man will get to see the, King: he is not afraid of distance or troubled by discomfort-and it will not be his voice that will be heard, if any voice is, crying out for more consideration,