Commonwealth and Coronation SIR,-1 have just read the article entitled
Commonwealth and Coronation in the Spectator of November 28th, 1952, and I should like to second the suggestion made in the Article that some form of participation should be arranged for Commonwealth representatives at the Coronation. In view of the religious nature of the Coronation service it would, perhaps, be best to provide for Commonwealth assistance in some such secular ceremony as a revived enthronement in Westminster Hall. The Asian Kingdoms, and India, are not Christian—and the recent revision of the Queen's style has taken this
fact into account—and the largest denomination in the Dominion of Canada is the Roman Catholic Church; hence the direct inclusion of trans-oceanic Anglican archbishops might weaken, rather than strengthen, the symbolic unity of the Commonwealth and Empire which is expressed in the personality of the Crown.
There are many subjects of the Queen in Canada who view with anxiety the inevitable remoteness of the monarchy from the personal experience of the great majority of the citizens of this kingdom. The royal tours of 1939 and 1951 show that the Royal connection is still popular and important, but the Viceregal Court at Ottawa (especially at the present time) is hardly a satisfactory substitute for the Crown itself. Some such plan as that suggested by the Round Table and the Spectator would do much to fill the gap, in Canada and the rest of the Commonwealth.
May I close with one small correction of detail ? The organisation of the Anglican communion in Australasia and South Africa is not familiar to me, but that of the Church in Canada is. The article Commonwealth and Coronation spoke of "the metropolitans of the Dominions, the Archbishops of Toronto and Cape Town and Sydney" —but the Church of England in Canada has four Ecclesiastical Provinces, and each has an Archbishop Metropolitan. (Succession is by seniority, except in the Province of Rupertsland, and three of the four Metropolitans retain their diocesan designation; the Archbishopric of Rupertsland is the only really elective and stationary Metropolitan- ate.) The Church in Canada has also a General Synod and a Primate;
the Primacy is elective, peripatetic (the Primate's designation is that of his own diocese), and the present Primate is the Most. Rev. W. F. Barfoot, Archbishop of Edmonton. Since the death of Dr. D. T. Owen the Bishop of Toronto has been just another prelate of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario.—Yours faithfully, E. T. GALPIN.
133 Durand Street, Sarnia, Ontario, Canada.
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