3 MAY 1935, Page 9

QUEEN MARY OF ENGLAND

pEOPLE are very apt to feel that the highest praise they can give to the wives of men in high places is to say " she has been a great help to her husband." One does not quarrel with this, because if true it implies a zeal and capacity for service wholly admirable ; but sometimes the phrase becomes a kind of screen, and conceals the individual contribution of a remarkable woman. In this the Jubilee Year of King George V, his fine recard of twenty-five years, so many of them heavy with the fate of England, seems to fill the mind, and we forget to pay tribute to the Queen, who, in her own sphere, has been quite as remarkable'as her husband.

Princess May., as she was always called before her marriage, was brought up in an atmosphere of constant benignant enthusiastic activity. Her mother, Princess Mary, Duchess of Teck, was always giving away food and garments and -advice and money in the Victorian Lady Bountiful way, now looked down upon as old-fashioned, patronizing and rather dreadful altogether. It may be right to condemn a condition of society where the classes were strictly divided and • a complacent upper was con- descendingly kind to a poor lower class, but it is wrong to condemn an individual -attitude of mind simply because it is not in advance of its period. I can remember seeing the old Duchess of Beaufort at Badminton—grandmother of the present Duke—somewhere about 1895, heap up a plate at luncheon with fragments out of the dishes from which she was helping herself, adding cake, grapes, oranges,. and then turning to a magnificent footman and telling him to see that it was taken to old Mrs. X in the village. Mrs.- Gladstone too was much addicted to this habit. She would lift bits of chicken and game off her plate and add vegetables and sauce and bid an extremely dingy. butler send it all to the orphans—she kept an orphanage in the village. It was, of course, an easy way of " doing good "—the very phrase offends the modern car—and it was not very effective. But the Lady Boun- tiful in her own period was the same woman who now organizes all kinds of social services, welfare centres, clinics, housing schemes, as indeed she often did even then.

Queen Mary is a modern too. As a girl she was always trying to educate herself, and it is said—with what truth I do not know--,-that even after she came out she always tried to secure six hours' reading in the day. I think it was the Select Committee appointed in 1888 to enquire into the abuses of sweated labour which first roused that continuous interest in industrial questions, and especially in those that concern women, which has been one of the dominating influences in her life. She was only a girl of twenty-one when the sorry procession of East-end workers came up before the Committee and gave evidence about the details of their wages, their hours of work, the conditions under which they lived. The Princess was deeply moved as she followed the evidence published from day to day. It was her first personal realization of the depths of human misery and cruelty, and it horrified her. She was distressed at her own inability to help, and the only thing she felt she could do was to study the questions involved. She plunged into reports and blue-books with characteristic thoroughness. When the Sweated Indus- tries Exhibition was held in 1906, the Queen, then Princess of Wales, only just back from the tour in India, insisted upon visiting the Exhibition at once, and sur- prised the social workers by her knowledge and captured their admiration by her sympathy. She also took mea- sures to see for herself, and visited many a poor dwelling where work was done in the home. She followed the great struggle against sweated labour with unflagging interest and read every book about the subject which could possibly help her to more knowledge.

When the Great War broke out one of the first things she did was to stop all luxuries, and long before food control was imposed she instituted a system of rationing in her own household which, of course, applied to her and the King as to everyone else. It was inevitable that with all the dislocation of trade and manufacture women's employment should suffer. The moment the plight of the women workers was brought to the Queen's notice she took action, and arranged for the formation of the Central Committee for the Employment of Women which still exists. Funds had to be raised and the Queen became President of a powerful " Collecting Fund." Now it was that her previous study of the conditions under which women often had to work and her intimate • knowledge of their hardships stood the strain. She followed every detail of the • work, was constantly consulted, and any of the women who worked with her at that time would testify to her practical ability, her wisdom, and her unfailing sympathy. She formed personal relations with some of the labour women serving on the committee, notably with Mary Maearthur, the Trade Unionist from Ayr, who as a young girl had journeyed to London some years before, deter- mined to do away with sweating. One could tell many stories about the friendship between these two women, made possible in the first instance—and that is my point—by the Queen's knowledge and understanding.

through the War she toiled unceasingly, visiting the wounded every day, as well as organizing and directing the War work of women all over the Empire. She gave a great lead, not sentimental, but instructed and wise, sane yet inspiring. It is this which the women of England should never, and I think will never, forget.

.There is another side of the Queen's work which I cannot leave out of this brief sketch. She has always studied history and art ; there is no amateur in the country who knows more about the treasures in our museuins and galleries and royal palaces. It is an education to be shown the miniatures, or the prints or the drawings at Windsor, by her personally, for she knows the technical points as well as the historical ones. She has made all the collections her special care and in consultation with the best advisers has seen to the re-arrangement and the cataloguing of countless works of art ; some she has actually discovered hidden away in what the Chinese call " go-downs." Quite recently at Holy rood she found some fine furniture in attics and cellars, and thoroughly enjoyed the explorations which she undertook. The nation owes her a great debt for the expert supervision she has given to the care of its art treasures.

This is not the time or place to speak of Her Majesty's private life—everyone knows of its domestic happiness and the high example of conduct which is set ; yet it may be permissible to remind people of her devotion to duty and of her ceaseless work. She has hardly ever been known to have even her breakfast in bed : her corre- spondence—and hundreds of letters reach her from all over the Empire—is dealt with personally each morning. She has, of course, several secretaries ; answers are dictated, and when it is possible, a personal touch is given ; in other words, her letters are not treated in a perfunctory way.

She has naturally a quantity of engagements and public functions to attend and endless kindnesses to people of all classes claim her personal attention. She has never cared for outdoor games, but walks every day with the King, and her hobbies are reading, knitting, and happiest of all, hunting in curiosity shops. Merchants of works of art, modern and ancient, have reason to be grateful. She visits them whenever and wherever she can and buys brie-&-brae in the most discriminating way. Her memory is wonderful ; almost everything she " picks up " has its ultimate destination in her mind— generally as a Christmas or birthday present for a special individual, and she remembers to ask- for a- particular object at the appropriate moment. Present-giving is a gracious hobby for a Queen, and besides the artistic gifts she sends many a sufferer just the right thing which will be helpful. It is part of her constant thought and consideration for others, from her servants to her friends. Queen Mary's strenuous work has not affected her vitality, for she has superb health and her natural dignity and poise, and her breadth of vision are well represented in the mature beauty of her appearance. She does not follow the fashion in clothes, nor does she attempt to lead it ; she only transmutes it into perfectly appropriate shapes and colours, and wears kbr jewels with a difference.

It is perhaps her own fault that her great public service is not always sufficiently recognized. She has all her life suffered from shyness and has never been able to conquer it socially, though when it comes to a question of organizing or directing one of her own projects she is no longer diffident. She has also never interfered with politics, and has been too discreet and too wise to display the influence which she must have with the King. The devotion that exists between them is patent to everyone who comes into contact with their daily lives.

In conclusion, one can only say that the claims of her great position have been met in a royal spirit. Let us, then, at this Silver Jubilee, give our homage gratefully to the Queen as well as to the King of England. L.