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THE YPRES TIMES
have happened but for the European outbreak a fortnight later but it is quite pos
sible that dissolution from within would have destroyed the British Empire.
Ordeal of War.
When war broke out the King was not unduly depressed, but went about his weighty
daily tasks composedly. In the blackest hours of our ordeal, though his advisers were
sometimes dismayed, he never swerved from his profound belief in the ultimate triumph
of the right. He set a personal example of austerity and self-discipline which con
tributed immensely to the maintenance of the united front the Empire presented during
those long and agonising years. Indeed, his attitude throughout personified the lines
of Kipling
No easy hope or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will and soul."
He paid many quiet, unheralded visits to the front, which greatly cheered the
troops, and there were almost daily inspections of soldiers and sailors at home. More
over, during the four war years he conferred over 15,000 decorations. In each case
he had made himself acquainted beforehand with the individual services of the recip
ients.
The truth is, of course, that, before anything else, King George is just an English
man. He has shown himself imbued with the Englishman's sense of justice, the English
man's pluck, the Englishman's old habit of doing his job. To no King of England
has duty ever spoken with a harsher tone no King of England has ever obeyed her
voice more submissively and courageously.
Our Beloved Sovereign
Facile phrases lie ready made to the hand of him who would write of Kings. But
King George's record of sterling service, unassumingly and uncomplainingly rendered,
is there before the whole world to take any Byzantine ring out of the phrase which usage
has applied to rulers good and bad alike, the phrase, Our Beloved Sovereign." If it
is hard to be a King at all, as many monarchs have lamented, it is harder still to be a
good king, especially in the circumstances of George the Fifth's accession and during
the epoch-making twenty-five years he has reigned over us.
The King's is not a masterful personality. His distinguishing traitsprobably
inherited from his mother, Queen Alexandraare rather kindliness, humanity and
balance, and it may be that these qualities have helped him in trials where the more
flamboyant attributes of kingship would have been a danger. But mere amiability
would not have achieved what he has done. The late Lord Oxford is credited with
the saying that if King George had been born in a private station, his political abilities
would have made him Prime Minister. The two were close friends, as we well
know, but Asquith was never the man to pay idle compliments, even to the best of
friends. He recognised behind the King's sauvity and moderation political gifts of
an exceptionally high order. Indeed, nothing else will account for the success with
which he has helped the country through the many crises of his reign.
The Jubilee's Solemn Significance.
May I offer just one word of warning? These Jubilee celebrations, culminating
as they do in a Thanksgiving Service in St. Paul's Cathedral and in other services of
a similar character throughout the whole Empire, should not be regarded as mere
pageantry. No doubt, in a sense they are that, and as pageantry should be made as
splendid as possible. But the Jubilee is much more. It links the present with the
past. It seems to visualise what the monarchy has done for the Empire, and to show,
as in a glass, not altogether darkly, what the monarchy may do for it in the future!
