- preserve,

HERE is not and cannot be
anything in common between

Ordinary people and the mon.”

archy,

As a social institution it is
‘exclusive, rigid, ruling class
As a political instit-
Ution it is a bulwark of Conser-
Vatism against social change.

When the Whigs joined with

| _ the Conservatives in the last
_ “ehtury any real divisions among

the Tuling class disappeared. —

4 “Henceforth,” wrote Sir Ivor

‘Jennings, the liberal constitu-
tional expert, “with a few ex-
Ceptions, the upper classes sup-
Ported the Conservatives — the
Sovereign is necessarily more
Closely associated with those
Classes than with the poorer

_ Section of the population.”

: A Masterpiece of English un-

derstatement, this!

All the adulatory bunk and
ballyhoo in the press today can-
Not conceal the fact that the
Monarchy and the court is the

“Preserve of the aristocracy and

—-Sratety]
8 S8

’

— Vang
-Pany
Pay atine Insurance Com-

Was Ses te

directo,

ing
— aha Bank, 1;

18 business.

Time has changed nothing ex-
Sah that the scions of the aristo-
a have become company dir-

“ors and the company _direct-
—s have been made peers by

: ory governments for
Wices rendered,

The Queen’s Lord Chamber-
San the Earl of Scarborough,
ie Baowner and a director of
Sor S Bank, Standard Bank of

Africa and Yorkshire In-
ance Company.

Her Majesty’s Lord ‘Steward is
Uke of Hamilton, deputy
iy of the British Linen
ce. Sag of Norwich Union

Norwich Union Life In-

si
yi Nee Companies, and Scottish
lation Ltg,

S0vey

One of the two
-in-Waiting, is a
ee ’
Sour of the Midland Bank,

Union and National In-
Company, and three
Merican trusts.

aM Cromer,

ahent the other per-

Td-in-Waiting, is a
the National Proy-
loyds and National
Sees Bank, London

sure Insurance Com-

of

lovin, 3

and ° *n Holdings Inc., the P.

Genera} eg and the Societe
~  S Huiles de Petrol.

. director of
‘ Collieries Ltd., and
Matrieg arl of Birkenhead, who
Viscoun € second daughter of
amrose, the press lord.

ae of the Honorable
€ntlemen at Arms is
arl Fortescue, . He

h
Corn, 8?

ie
Bouse Tory whip in the

NE the or o8 in 1945, organis-

‘ 0 $s
"boy anaes against the
6 mentt
A fy:
( af
nites ie Tecent addition to the
. MPhie, *10r-General Charles
be Fa the €n he Was a int-
Note sc, London Dai Ppoint
ne ‘At ly Express

. Same tj

BES Tmincae Ime he be-
Sheng aging gi

“Dineen. 8 director of the

Work:
Okt armatey Shipyards

ones

ay

igus Set

ere

cara

his business
of the |

Coronation

That’s a cross-section of the
Royal household.

How can anyone claim there is
anything neutral here? Nothing
farther away from the ordinary

_ people of Britain could be imag-

ined.

It is a circle whose social or-
igin, birth background and con-
nections, whose close ties with
big business and profit, make it
Conservative in ‘political allegi-
ance, reactionary in outlook, op-

posed to social change and alien

to the working class.

The Coronation parade will be
their parade, a parade of their
class with the working class as
distant spectators.

It will be headed by the stan-
dard-bearers.

+ Carrying the Union Standard
will be an army captain.

+ Carrying the Standard of

Wales will be Lord Harlech, Tory

politician of long standing, chair-

By JOHN GOLLAN

man of the Midland Bank and.

director of two other banks.

+ Scotland’s Standard will be
carried by Viscount Dudhope,
previous Tory MP for West Ren-
frew.

+ England’s Standard will be
borne aloft by Earl Derby, of
Martins Bank and London and
Lancashire Insurance Company.

+ The Royal Standard will be
carried by Viscount Montgomery.

The Coronation standard-
bearers: Tories and titled ex-
ploiters—could anything be more
appropriate?

The Queen’s procession will be
headed by the uniformed, decor-
ated and noble representatives of
big business.

And the people are expected
to cheer them because they are
earls as well as exploiters.

No! There is nothing here for
us. It is a parade of wealth and
Conservatism.

These people carry proudly for
a day the flag which every other
day they lower before the Stars
and Stripes.

Every occupant of the throne
since George III, noted the late
Harold Laski, has been “con-
sistently Conservative and im-
perialist in private opinion.”

“The inescapable fact,” he con-
cluded, “is that the social en-
vironment of the King is heavily
weighted on the Conservative
side.”

He was writing mainly about
Queen Victoria and Edward VII.

Sir Harold Nicolson’s recently
published, and -no doubt care-
fully edited, biography, King
George V, bears out this general
conclusion.

King George V_ sympathised
with the Russian Tsar and Span-
ish King Alphonso, reactionary
monarchs tossed out by their
enraged peoples.

Only by the greatest pressure
could he be got to agree to the
Liberal Parliament Act of 1911
cutting down the powers of the
House of Lords.

He regarded the defeat of the
London General Strike as a great
victory for law and order and
personally congratulated the
head of police at the time.

He played a major part in the
great Ramsay MacDonald betray-
al of 1931 and the formation of
the hated ‘National’ government
which starved the unemployed
and later built up Hitler.

It is no good saying that to-
day the monarchy has no power.
It would be wrong, argues ‘Sir
Ivor Jennings, to underestimate
the influence of the monarch
on British polifics—

‘The sovereign must, in the
last resort, accept the decisions
of the government, but he may
have considerable influence on
those decisions.’

And who advises the monarch?
Practically ‘the whole of those
who. advise the King,’ wrote
Laski, ‘are in or about the pluto-
cracy. All its intimate social- con-
tacts are of the same kind.’

The detailed names and the
detailed advice we shall never
know in full until the royal
archives at Windsor are made
available to social historians.

A little light is thrown now
and then on the political attitude
of the monarch’s private secre-
tary, a personal appointment of
the crown.

Lord Stamfordham, secretary
to King George V, opposed the
1911 Lords Bill. When in 1917
the Russian Revolution had its
powerful repercussions among
the British workers, it was Stam-
fordham who urged
counter-offensive.

The King had to move more
among the workers on visits, he
urged, to induce the ‘Socialists
and others to regard the crown

. as a living power for good.”

He was backed in this by the
wily Lloyd George.

Churchill is out to extract the
last ounce of political capital out
of the Coronation for the Tory
party as his predecessors have
always done before.

‘Naturally the government is
not adverse to using the per-
sonal popularity of the sover-
eign to strengthen its own pop-
ular appeal,’ writes Jennings in
his authoritative study on cab-
inet government.

‘It is certain that the Jubilee
and Diamond Jubilee celebra-

tions of 1887 and 1897 strength;
ened popular support for the
imperialist ideas of the Conser-
vative governments then in
office. It is certain, too, that the
Silver Jubilee of 1935 strength-
ened the National government,
whose popular support had un-
til then been rapidly ~ dimin-
ishing. ;

‘According to his biographer,
Mr. Neville Chamberlain was
‘cheered by a belief that the
decision to rearm and the Jub-
ilee would both enrich the soil
in which a Conservative gov-
ernment must thrive!’’ ‘

. There it is—the Coronation in
a nutshell.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 22, 1953 — PAGE 9

a_ royal

a

—

eee