Empire Day

Ten thousand Britons crowded into Hyde Park last week on Queen Victoria's birthday, more popularly known as Empire Day, which England sets aside to honor her great inheritance.

In the natural amphitheatre by the row-boat-ridden Serpentine, military bands were playing "Tipperary," "A Long, Long Trail," old songs of the War. The bands ceased. Into the amphitheatre marched massed choirs of London churches in cassock and cotta, at their head the sedate Bishop of Kensington, Rt. Rev. John Primatt Maud, solemn in billowing lawn sleeves, and pectoral cross. The Bishop took his place on the speakers' platform. A rocket curved up into the evening air. The Bishop of Kensington read the Lord's Prayer and a prayer for the King.

Leaning nonchalantly on the platform railing was plump, pale-eyed Stanley Baldwin, Britain's Prime Minister. While the Bishop prayed, Prime Minister Baldwin mumbled in response and read through his own speech, preoccupied, apparently oblivious to the solemnity of the occasion. Prayers over, he mounted the rostrum. Cocking his head on one side, shooting out his under jaw, he began:

"His Majesty King George is everybody's King ! And the first words all those listening throughout the Empire would wish me to say are those of thanksgiving to Almighty God for the King's recovery. His patience and courage drew the sympathy of all nations and proved a new bond of human brotherhood. Never has loyalty of his people been more affectionately centred on the Throne than it is at this moment."

With many pauses for emphasis, characteristic of his speaking style, pauses during which he wags his tongue sidewise in open mouth, as if calculating, and winces about the eyes, as though thinking hard, he then launched into description, analysis, comparison of the Empire. A typical excerpt:

"Governments built on foundations of tyranny and oppression have flourished, decayed and perished. The British Empire has shown that the lessons of the fate of empires have not been lost. We have loosened the formal bonds of unity with the great dominions. . . . When we meet together in equal freedom we are united by common allegiance to the Crown. In that model unity lies our strength."

His speech finished, Prime Minister Baldwin grinned ingratiatingly, winced again and descended from the platform. Listening to the speech with eyes closed, a sour expression on her face, was long-nosed Margot, Countess of Oxford and Asquith. Her moment came when the men were through speaking. The women of the audience crowded around her for a look, a possible smile, as they always do. She, as she always does, loved it, lingered long.

In New York City, Empire Day was celebrated at the Hotel Plaza. Sir Esme Howard, British Ambassador to the U. S., addressed the members of the newly formed British Commonwealth Club. His speech was chiefly explanatory. He said:

"The British Empire represents a momentous and astounding political revolution accomplished in perfect amity round a table in London, which is still a source of mystification to our French friends.

"I can quite understand the mystification of our French friends, who love all things clean cut and logical, in contemplating an arrangement of this kind which no logical brain could ever have created. The idea of States belonging to one political system, and yet having such elasticity that disagreement over matters of foreign policy is not altogether excluded, would be incomprehensible to many."

Unlike Stanley Baldwin, Ambassador Howard remembered to pay tribute to Queen Victoria in whose honor Empire Day was started.

"The Victorian age," said he, "will sooner or later come to be appreciated once more as a great and spacious time when men still had leisure and it was not necessary to specialize."