Pomp & Program

At precisely 3 p.m., on Ottawa's Parliament Hill, a sleek maroon phaeton rolled up the curving drive. Several thousand sweltering spectators patted their hands in gentle applause. The car stopped at the great center doorway of the Parliament Building and out stepped Alexander Frederick Augustus William Alfred George Cambridge, first Earl of Athlone, and his wife, the Princess Alice. Athlone. for five years the representative in Canada of his nephew George VI, was on his way to perform for the last time the most impressive of a Canadian Governor General's functions--the formal opening of a session of Parliament.

On the stone steps, the tall, booted, hawk-nosed Earl watched a company of soldiers, sailors and airmen click to "present arms," heard a military band play the final strain of God Save the King. From the distance came the deep booms of a 19-gun salute. The Earl, plainly enjoying this time-honored parliamentary pageantry, smiled, then turned and warmly shook the hand of Canada's chunky, frock-coated Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. A braid-heavy honor guard escorted the Earl and the Princess inside.

In the high-domed red chamber of Canada's Senate waited senators, Supreme Court justices and foreign diplomats with their dressed-up ladies. As the Athlones slowly entered, everyone rose. The men bowed; some of the women curtseyed. Princess Alice and the Governor General ascended the thrones. After members of the House of Commons, summoned from down the hall, had crowded in, the Governor General began to read a speech --first in English (20 minutes), then all over again in halting French (half an hour). Then Canada's 20th Parliament, after the first really ritualistic opening in six years, got down to routine business.

Flags & Finances. The Speech from the Throne, written painstakingly by Prime Minister King, was actually the first rough draft of Canada's program in peace.

Some of the legislation that it forecast was expected and routine. Parliament would be asked to approve the bright new United Nations Charter. It would be expected to pass bills to speed the country's return to peacetime life, to create peacetime jobs, to solve the Dominion's housing shortage. There would be legislation authorizing Canada's participation in international monetary agreements. A Veterans' Charter, something like the U.S.'s "G.I. Bill of Rights," would be created. But to Canadians the most interesting legislation in prospect involved the creation of a Canadian nationality and adoption of a Canadian flag.

Said the Speech: "Canada . . . should possess a distinctive national flag. You will be asked to appoint a select committee ... to consider a suitable design. . . . The Government also considers that it is advisable to ... clarify the definition of Canadian citizenship. . . ."

Canada's flag will probably be the Red Ensign.* Usage has made it the Dominion's unofficial flag; it was flown from the Parliament Building's Peace Tower on V-E and V-J day. And if Mr. King has his way (which is almost certain in a House of Commons consisting of 126 Liberals against 119 members in opposition), soon Canadians would no longer have to identify themselves in legal matters as British subjects; they would be simply Canadians.

* Originally a merchant marine flag, it has the British Union Jack in the upper staff corner, bears Canada's coat of arms on a red field.

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