THE KING'S FIRST YEAR Q UIET perhaps, and not effusively proclaimed,
but very deep and genuine, is the feeling of satisfaction with which, in this week of anniversary celebrations, the British race has reviewed the first twelve months of King Edward's reign. It was a tremendous as well as a mag- nificent heritage on which the King entered, in the shadow of a great family and national grief, on January 22nd, 1901, with possibilities correspondingly vast of beneficent and maleficent occupation on the part of the inheritor. By this, of course, we do not mean to convey that the Sovereign of that Royal Republic, the British Empire, holds within his hands such powers of producing, rapidly, colossal results for good or evil, especially evil, as are attached to the headship of the German and Russian Empires, or even to the Presidency of the United States. By obstinate adherence with the full force of his authority to a single false initiative, any one of those potentates could almost at any moment plunge, not only his own country, but the whole world into calamities which could not be repaired for generations. It is not so with the British Monarchy. Our system of "checks and balances" makes it practically impossible that the immediate and al-evocable determination of world-wide issues should rest with any individual, however masterful ; and if any excep- :van should be made to this observation, it would not relate to any conceivable occupant of the throne. None the less, however, is it true that the powers for good or evil wielded by our King or regnant Queen are of very great, indeed immeasurable, proportions, if only time be given for their full exercise. The difference neta-een success and failure in kingship with us, that is to say, is not so much a difference in the quality of a limited' number of decisions in matters of first-class moment, as in the steady arrival at sound, or unsound, judgments on a, great variety of matters, many of which in themselves are of distinctly less than first-class moment, and the pursuit of the course so marked out with or without the requisite tact, temper, sympathy, and dignity. It is, in other words, a cumulative power which our Sovereigns wield, and their people have to judge them by a broad view of the set and direction of their occupancy of the throne, helped in their judgment, of course, by anything in the way of "test cases " that may present itself. That being so, the British race, we say, have felt that they had very good reasons for satisfaction in the celebration of the first anniversary of King Edward's accession.
The retrospect of twelve months, and those twelve anxious and somewhat critical months, does afford a fair opportunity of judging whether the set, the direc- tion, of the new reign is a right one, and, happily, of answering that question in the affirmative. This could be said even if there had not been, as there has been, a feature in the year's history to which we will presently refer, and which may justly be regarded as a " test case " in its bearing on the King's view of his position and its duties. The year has been one of con- tinued and practically unremitting trial and anxiety in the Imperial sphere. That being so, no Englishman can have lived through it without feeling that in every possible way the King has linked himself with the care, the sorrow, and the resolve of his people, nay, more, that he has always had in view the thought of giving encouragement, and so lightening burdens, wherever that was in his power. There has always been the touch of personal and heartfelt admiration for duty nobly done, and sufferings and sacrifices bravely borne, in his bearing and his words on the occasion of the distribution of war honours. There has been nothing formal or artificial in his assurances to those who were going to the front of confidence in their high purpose, and their capacity to fulfil it. At all these moving ceremonies the King has stood out clearly not only as the constitutional head of the military forces of the nation, but as the conscious embodiment of the nation's gratitude towards all the men who, of whatever service and from whatever part of the Empire, had risked, or were about to risk, their lives for its unity and security. For the worthy fulfilment of that high mission no slight thanks are due to King Edward. Nor, as we look back on a year which brought sudden and tragic loss to the American people, can we for a moment forget the admirable expression which was given by the King to the profound sympathy of the British race with that great kindred nation, who had sorrowedwith us in our own bereave- ment. Those excellent messages of Royal sympathy sprang primarily from deep human feeling on the Sovereign's part, but they undoubtedly served to promote an object of inestimable public value which he never loses an opportunity of advancing,—the more intimate friendship of the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon stock. What is unseen of character and work is inevitably, and in the main rightly, inferred from what is seen, and from such incidents as those to which we have referred in King - Edward's public conduct during the first twelve months of his reign the nation would have been more than justified in drawing very favourable conclusions as to his discharge of those manifold and arduous functions of a' constitutional Monarch which are necessarily outside public ken. But there has been something much more conspicuous, providing the "test case " of which we have spoken,—the sacrifice of private feeling made so quietly by the King at the very outset of his reign in adhering to the plan originated, or certainly sanctioned with a whole heart, by Queen Victoria, of sending his' only surviving son and his wife to the other side of the world to open the first Parliament of the Australian Commonwealth; Nor did the Kinn only decide, and that within the first few days after his great loss, to adhere to the plan thus consecrated, but, as he announced in the Speech opening the Imperial Parliament a year ago, he resolved to give it a great enlargement. Not only was the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Corn- wall to Australia not to be abandoned, though it involved their very early departure, but it was to be extended also to New Zealand and the Dominion of Canada, and. at we all know. South Africa also was soon in- eluded within its scope. It was pretty generally recognised at the time that the announcement gave evidence of the possession by the new King, not only of excellent judgment, but of that touch of imagination which is so infinitely vitalising to the work of Sovereigns and statesmen, combined with the readiness, peculiarly laudable in one so strongly possessed by family affections, to forego personal solace and support, even when most needed, for the sake of a great national service. How great the service thus rendered was we probably may not know in full for many a year. But we know already that the journey of the Prince and Princess of Wales ran like a line of light through the Imperial annals of a gloomy and anxious year; and that they discharged the splendid mission entrusted to them with a combination of wisdom, tact, and enthusiasm which commanded universal admiration, and drew on to even higher heights the flood-tide of Colonial loyalty. Surely it may be said that the ruler to whose keenness of insight into Imperial needs, and self-sacrifice at a moment of grief and difficulty, is due the persistence and the development of a scheme which has been so unbounded an Imperial success, has given no slight evidence of his qualifications for the sovereignty of the British Empire.
Of course, it is in every one's heart, and most of all, we may be sure, in that of the King himself, that he is building — steadily and faithfully, as we believe — on foundations laid for him and for us by his beloved prede- cessor. It was Queen Victoriawhose signal wisdom, breadth of sympathies, and exalted standards of public and private duty, maintained without flagging through nearly sixty- five years of sovereignty, established the reconciliation of Democracy with Empire. In her example her Royal successor, and all those who were her, and are his, sub- jects, will ever find abundant guidance and inspiration in the most difficult times. It is much that the British race can feel, a year from her lamented death, that the right road is being travelled in that new chapter of our history which began when she went to her rest.
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