TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE RETURN OF THE KING. TO-NIGHT or to-morrow morning King George and Queen Mary return to the land which is specially their own. It is not indeed any foreign journey that they have been making. They have trodden no soil that is not their own. The subjects they have visited are different in colour, in creed, in present habits, and in immemorial traditions from those they are about to rejoin, but in enthusiasm, in devotion, in all that makes the romance of the relation of people to Sovereign, they are one with ourselves. The King and Queen have come back, but their home-coming is only the change from one palace to another. If we are to take in the full meaning of this we must cast our thoughts back to the doubts which were so widely felt while the visit to India was still only in contemplation. The prospect was not universally welcomed by those who had a right to be consulted. The cloud of Indian unsettlement had not been wholly lifted ; and if that unsettlement was still formidable, beyond question the actual presence of the King would give unexpected occasions for its manifestation. The anarchist of Europe still sets some value on his life ; the Indian fanatic knows no such weakness. To the one what hap- pens after death is nothing but a blank; to the other it is a vision of bliss which the slaughter of his victim will make certain and immediate. Considerations such as these might well be a cause of anxiety to the King's responsible advisers. They might in the end elect to put them aside, but the fears they excite would not always take wing as soon as bidden. Thus the reasons for and against the Royal visit did not admit of being balanced in Cabinet discussions. On the one side was the certainty of winning the hearts of millions, on the other the chance of falling beneath the dagger or the bomb of some one of them. How could these prospects be weighed against each other ? There were no common terms in which to state them. We can see now how groundless these fears were, but it was only the experiment that proved them groundless, and the honour of making this experiment belongs to the King. One hint that he, too, was wavering, the least suspicion that the alarm which possessed some of those best qualified to pass judgment on Indian character had communicated itself to him, and the project would at once have fallen to the ground. His decision would have given immense relief to some of his advisers, and would have been recog- nized as without appeal by the others. Only the King could determine on which his choice should fall, and he dealt with the problem in a spirit worthy of himself and of his House. So would the greatest of his predecessors in the distant past have acted ; so would Victoria and Edward VII. have acted. No greater tribute could be paid to King George V., and it is one that he has well earned.
Nor has his reward ended here. The results of his visit to India have exceeded the expectations of those who were most anxious that the visit should be paid. The people of India, great as are the distinctions which race and history have imposed on them, have this characteristic in common, that their allegiance, if paid at all, is paid to a personal sovereign. For something like a century and a half there has been no such thing in India. There have been admirable substitutes for a personal sovereign in great viceroys and great governors of provinces who have established English order and English ideas of govern- ment throughout the Indian Peninsula. But through- out that time, though there has always been a ruler to whom obedience was rendered, there has never been one to call forth the instinctive and unquestioning allegiance which the Eastern races associate with sove- reignty. One small incident in the Royal tour—small at least in comparison with the splendid pageants that accompanied every stage of the Imperial progress which happened on the day of the Great Durbar may be cited as evidence of the change which the King's visit has wrought. " The Sovereigns had departed with all their brilliant retinue ; the troops were marching off ; the crowd of dignitaries, native and European, who had been assembled in the pavilion were hurrying to find their motors and carriages ; and all that was left of the pageant, a few minutes before so impressive and so dazzling, were the two empty thrones facing the crowd of native spectators who represented the peoples as contrasted with the rulers of India. Suddenly a few of these native spectators made a rush forward to the steps of the two thrones and prostrated themselves to the ground. The example was instantly followed by others, and in a few minutes the Imperial thrones were surrounded by a vast crowd struggling to do reverence to these emblems of sovereignty." They had seen the reality, and henceforward the emblems will have for them a meaning which could have been brought home to them in no other way. We borrow this description from an article in an Indian newspaper, the Statesman, written by Mr. Harold Cox. But the incident did not stand alone. It had a parallel in the "wonderful and moving ceremony" which took place on the following day. The Mogul Emperors used to show themselves to their people from the walls of the Palace, and it was a wise thought in their successor to follow their example. The King and Queen sat in their Royal robes " accompanied only by their pages, so that they stood out clearly for the vast crowd below to see. . . . This presen- tation of the King and Queen from the walls of the Palace to the people below was the most democratic feature of all the Delhi pageants, and by the agreement of every one it was the most successful of all." We are not sure, however, that it was not surpassed in one way by the welcome the King met with from an enthusiastic and jubilant crowd, among whom he had come " practically unattended " to look at a football match. He can hardly have forgotten that here, if anywhere, the wisdom of his decision to come to India was to be tested. This of all others was the assassin's opportunity, an opportunity which could not have been foreseen—since kings seldom lay aside their State so completely—and so could not have been guarded against. In no part of his tour was his stability of mind and steadfastness of purpose more signally displayed. The visit to India had been the out- come of his own choice. No doubt he had weighed the dangers pointed out to him, and he had come to the con- clusion that the duty of a king is to dare everything in pursuit of the welfare of the people committed to his charge. To walk unconcernedly among a crowd every man in which might conceivably be an assassin is a greater proof of courage than to head a charge in the field. In a second article Mr. Cox writes in a very interesting way of the effect of the King's Indian tour upon his people at home. " The theory of the Constitution strictly car- ried out would reduce the Sovereign almost to a, cipher, and the average man has no means of knowing whether in actual practice the King has a will of his own or is the mere puppet of his Ministers. . . . Englishmen have learnt more of their Sovereign by his visit to India than they would ever have been able to learn if he had remained at home." They know the excellent use to which he has put his time in India. " He knows more of India than any one of his present Ministers," and in addition to the careful discharge of every public function " he has made a. point of conversing privately with princes and high officials and leaders of Indian opinion. He has learnt their views at first hand, and thus has been able to acquire in a -very brief period an extensive knowledge of Indian problems.' If the King can do this in one part of his dominions may he not do the same thing with excellent results in another part? There is certainly room for something of the kind nearer home. Time was when except for social reasons the character of the Sovereign mattered little. The House of Commons was a really representative body. It expressed the real mind of its constituents, it made and unmade Cabinets in accordance with the wishes of the country. Now all this has changed. " In theory the people have acquired the power to rule themselves ; in practice they are subject to an alternating tyranny from rival political caucuses. The House of Commons has now passed cora• pletely under the control of the Cabinet, which itself is controlled by the wirepullers of the party."
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