28 DECEMBER 1934, Page 6

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

NOT all the chapters in all the text-books on the King as focal point for the Dominions and Colonies that make up the British Commonwealth could do half as much to drive that home as the King's five-minute broadcast on Christmas Day. As a fairly hardened journalist I. listen to such things unemotionally, but there is a touch of personality and intimacy about King George's talk to his people which never leave me quite untouched. And this year those qualities are particularly appropriate. The royal wedding has had a quite remarkable effect in identifying the royal family with the nation, and the King's emphasis in his broadcast address on the Empire family identified him with his people in another sense. That is an admirable prelude to this year's Silver Jubilee celebrations, for with all the inevitable and fitting pageantry that will mark them the underlying note once more will be one not of mere celebration, but of respect and regard as for the head of a vast family, and of profound admiration for the spectacle of the faultless fulfilment of the functions of kingship. No one can doubt that it is on that note that the King himself would most desire to dwell.