The King of Canada The right note has been struck
by the New York Times when in commenting on the arrangements for the visit of the King and Queen to the United States next year, announced in the Speech from the Throne on Tuesday, it hailed the visit as symbolising first and foremost the friendship of two great democracies. It is, indeed, first and foremost, that. The fact that one country is a republic and the other a constitutional monarchy is irrelevant. If the democracy of this country wanted to choose an ideal representative of its aims and convictions it could find none more effective than its present sovereign, and nowhere, it may be added, would King George's unaffected simplicity be calculated to make a deeper impression than in the United States. But the visit to Washington is, of course, in a sense inci- dental. It is primarily for a three weeks' tour in Canada that the King and Queen will be leaving these shores—for the first visit ever paid by a reigning sovereign to a self- governing Dominion—next spring. The arrangements have not yet been made, and they will be important as creating precedents. It is not known whether the Prime Minister or Dominions Secretary will be of the party. On balance there is strong reason why they should not. When he lands on the banks of the St. Lawrence King George will, as Lord Stanhope rightly pointed out in the House of Lords this week, be to Canadians before all things King of Canada, and it is by his Canadian Ministers that he should be advised during his stay there. That constitutional principle is worth emphasising—visibly.
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