NEWS OF THE WEEK
KING EDWARD'S abdication has been foreshadowed but not announced as these words are written. His final decision is as hard as any a man can make, though the situation that made it necessary must have been long foreseen. It is his own ; whatever his unofficial advisers may have counselled, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that the Ministers on whose advice a constitutional King relies have gone an inch outside their province, and only the Government's habitual enemies—not on the Opposition benches—have hinted that. There are three people above all others to whom the nation's sympathy goes out—King Edward himself, Queen Mary and the Prime Minister. Of them Mr. Baldwin merits gratitude no less than sympathy. There is no man in the Cabinet or out of it whose handling of such a situation as this could inspire equal confidence. Through the last ten days he has faced a crisis for which there is no precedent and undergone a physical strain that must be viewed with some apprehension in the case of a man whose resignation on grounds of health has been widely talked of. His combination of warm humanity with sanity of judgement in the normal affairs of life qualifies him supremely for the position of interpreter between an undecided King and an anxious country. If it falls to him now to initiate a new King in the duties of sovereignty, that King will be fortunate alike in his mentor and in the knowledge that the country accepts him with gratitude and confidence as its lawful ruler.
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