"Queen, You Are O.K."

Travel-weary but pleased. Queen Elizabeth II last week came to the end of her six-week Canadian tour, at the historic British fortress of Halifax. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and 18 Cabinet members were on hand to see her off in a whirl of meetings, state banquets and one final piece of business: the appointment of a new Governor General to succeed scholarly Vincent Massey, 72, who retires this fall after 7 1/2 years of service.

For her viceroy. Elizabeth chose the first French Canadian ever to be appointed to the post. He is Major General George Philias Vanier, 71, a courtly soldier-diplomat whose family settled in Quebec in 1681. A World War I hero who lost a leg at the Cherisy campaign, Vanier was Canada's first Ambassador to France, has lived quietly in retirement since 1953.

That task accomplished, the Queen, who in 15,000 miles of travels had seen and been seen by more Canadians than any. other reigning sovereign in history, gave gracious thanks for her welcome and flew home across the Atlantic by Comet jet. Her long, sometimes too arduous tour was more a personal success than a triumph of monarchy in highly independent, increasingly nationalistic Canada. Elizabeth's visit, both in her formal role, officiating with President Eisenhower at the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the informal journeys that followed, was a symbol of the Commonwealth to which Canada belongs as a vital and equal young partner. Her Canadian subjects greeted her with neither awe nor indifference, but with friendship. As the Whitehorse Star informed her with proper pioneer breeziness in the Yukon: QUEEN, YOU ARE O.K. BY US.

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