The Crown

P: An Empire radio scandal erupted last week from George V's first "fireside broadcast," delivered by His Majesty in close imitation of the U. S. White House's "just-folksy" technique.

"As I sit in my own home," said the King-Emperor from Sandringham Hall. "I am thinking of the great multitude who are listening to my voice. ... I send a special greeting to the people of my dominions overseas. ... If my voice reaches any of the peoples of India, let it bring them the assurance of my constant care for them and of my desire that they today ever and more fully realize their own place in this unity of the one family. . . . May I add, very simply and sincerely, that if I may be regarded as in some true sense the head of this great and widespread family, sharing its life and sustained by its affection, this will be a full reward for the long and sometimes anxious labors of my reign of well-nigh five and twenty years. ... I commend you to the Father of whom you and every family in Heaven and on Earth is made. God bless you all!"

This was all very well, containing as it did the most magnificent understatement ever uttered by His Majesty, but the Empire broadcast also included greetings to King George from a dairy farmer in New Zealand, a lumberjack in the Canadian woods, an Army pensioner in London, a tea merchant on his Indian plantation, et al. Sandwiched in were what the announcer called "an eyewitness description of surf bathing at Bondi Beach" in Australia and "the voices of children romping in the botanical gardens at Melbourne."

Next day Australian editors pointed out that Melbourne moppets do not romp in the middle of the night; that at 1 a. m., Australian time, there may be moonbathing but not sunbathing on Bondi Beach. After denouncing the obvious fake (apparently achieved by playing phonograph records in London), Australian papers indicated, characteristically, that they might have been prepared to forgive all had not the description of Bondi the Beautiful, the Pearl of Australia, been so "unspeakably puerile."

Duped like millions of his subjects was George V who listened in when not broadcasting. To Australia's fresh exposure of perfidious Albion, His Majesty was said by courtiers to have reacted with the saltiest of his salty oaths.

P: Shorter than usual this year is George V's New Year's Honors List, for the reason that His Majesty is saving up for a spate of honors to be showered down on his Silver Jubilee (May 6, 1935). This week he upped only three subjects to the peerage: Sir Henry Betterton, Sir Wyndham Portal, Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh. To the plethora of titles with which his eldest son is burdened he added those of Admiral of the Fleet, General of the Army, Chief Marshal of the Air Force.

P: Surfriding off New Zealand last week, the goodwill touring Duke of Gloucester slipped, cut his foot on a sharp stone. "The injury, while giving no cause for alarm," announced Gloucester's equerry, "will force His Royal Highness to somewhat limit his engagements."

P: With grace and humor Albert Frederick, Duke of York, second son of Their Majesties, solved the problem of what to say to the mechanical folk of Britain's Industrial Welfare Association, as follows: "My industrial visits do not always have the best results. I seem sometimes to place an evil spell on any machines in which I would take a special interest. They may break down or stop. Once, to my surprise and dismay, I was dropped in a lift; another time a supposedly foolproof stamping machine ejected 40 unstamped letters for my benefit. The threads of looms at times break as I approach them, but, in spite of these odd occurrences, I am glad that employers are ready to welcome me in their midst."

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