NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE Coronation of King George VI has passed into history, and the next day of like rejoicing, we may hope will be a Silver Jubilee. The ceremony within the Abbey and the pageant without fulfilled even the expectations which the months of preparation had kindled. The King looked pale, but his voice in his evening broadcast was strong and firm, and the slight hesitations in his speech were almost negligible. Legally King George is no more a King today than he was on Tuesday, but the feeling that his king- ship has been completed and enriched by the solemn cere- monial in the Abbey is universal and right. The Coronation, far from being an empty show, has intensified, in a way that all men can see and understand, the sense of unity not only between all classes in this country, but between every part of the British Commonwealth. In a speech that, but for concentration on the actual celebration itself, would have attracted more attention than in the circumstances it can, General Smuts at Cape Town emphasised, what American writers have been generous in recognising, the value for the stability of the world of the League of kindred but free and independent States of which the British Dominions, each with its own King, who is the same King, are composed. Now the great festival is over, and it is as well, for too much distraction is. wearing. We have had our hour, and return with some relief to life's normal tasks.
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