New-York tribune., 1901-01-24
ACCESSION OF EDWARD III.

ACCESSION OF EDWARD VII
The old orde, changeth, yielding place 10
new" Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, has
become Edward VII King of the United King
dom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor
of India The accession has been accomplished
with appropriate expedition and with admirable
smoothness and dignity. The royal title is un-
challenged and is Loyalty approved and ratified
by his myriads of subjects, of many races ana
in all quarters of the globe 1t is an inevitable
feature of hereditary monarchy that each new
sovereign must begin his reign in circumstances
Of personal and national mourning, and must
be himself the object at once of cOndOlement
and of congratulation Assuredly the world
has known no wider and deeper sentiments or
regret for the demise of any monarch than
those which it now feels at the death of Vic
toria 1t is fitting, in view OF the kinship OF all
lands and peoples and their interdependence for
peace and progress, that there shall be com
nara bly general and sincere good wishes for Ed
ward VII and for his reign. In the United
States which he as Prince has visited and tow
ard which he is we'll known 10 cherish feelings
of especial friendship, such wishes are strong
and cordial. His reign begins at a time when
the relations between the two countries are
more intimate and affectiOnate than ever before
We may be sure that he will never use the in
fuence of his exalted rank to make them less
So but will rather seek TO perpetuate the happy
status established in the closing years of his
mothers reign. Regarding him as a warm
friend of this Nation and as the head of the
great nation which is our closest kin, Ameri-
cans may well wish long and prosperous reign
for Edward VII.
Prophets of evil are always plentiful. No oc-
is 10
ready and jealous TO kill Joy and to deepen sor
row. At the present time they are many and
vociferous. They declare that it solely the
South African war which killed the Queen: that
while Her Majesty saw the British Empire rise
to its greatest extent and power and glory, she
also in her last years saw and was saddened by
the beginning of its sure and swift decline, and
they predict that with the removal of her pow
erful personality and the accession of Edward
VII the Empire will speedily disintegrate and
the United Kingdom will fall 10 the rank Of A
second or a third rate Power. Such utterances
are not, indeed. confined TO such unworthy
sheets as the "Libre Parole" of Paris; the
Petit Bleu," of Brussels and Mr. Labouchere's
Truth" with which the wish is father to the
thought. Even so estimabe a journal as the
Temps" of Paris, thinks the British nation is
now doomed to go cropping in the dark, and
The Times" of London, itself laments that the
nation is left in this supreme crisis, less secure
of its position than it could desire. 1t is doubt
less always well to take a sober and conserva-
tive view of affairs But sobriety and conserva-
tism are not necessarily pessmistic, as most OF
the utterances 10 which we have referred ap-
pear TO be.
The record discredits such forebodings. His
tory is thickly botted with their prototypes, all
unfulflled. Since we were hidden to roll up
the map of Europe how many predictions of
disaster have been made! There is scarcely a
nation in Europe that has not been menaced
with destruction-no, nor out of Europe. either.
Forty years ago the United States seemed so
fallen that Mr.. Gladstone exultantly proclaimed
its dissolution, and all the world
The sceqtred Giants coma and go.
And shake their shadowy crowns and say. I'VE
always feared II would be so!'
But this Union still lives. jndlssoluble and
more powerful than ever before. As for evil
prophecies Of Great Britain, they have been
innumerable all through the Victorian era. The
reign of Victoria began, indeed, in more ominous
circumstances than those in which that OF Ed
ward VII begins. For several years Europe had
been seethng in revolution. and grave unrest
had extended to England itself. The Reform
bill thought by many to have opened the
republicanism and overthrow Of the monarchy.
Chartism was rampant and violent. Ireland
was sullen and hostile All Canada was in a
state of insurrectiop. The Indian Government
was involved in a costly with Afghanistan.
And Great Britain was fully as much alone and
friendless among the Powers as ever she has
been in these later years. What circumstances
those were. in which the crown and sceptre
should be assumed by a girl in her teens! And
what situations there were later. when the
Khyber Pass disaster was known when O'Con-
nell raised the standard of secession on Tara
Hill, when the horrors of the Crimea were dis
closed, and when the great Mutiny threatened
10 rob Her Majesty of her Indian Empire! AT
every one of these crises men proclaimed "Finis
Britannica But the end is not yet.
There is, as We have already indicated, far
less danger of any disastrous change in British
affairs now than there was sixty-four years ago
For then a vast constitutional revolution was
actually being effected, while to-day there is
none, nor any thought of one Then the SOW
ereignty passed to an inexperienced girl, who
was entirely out of harmony with the preceding
reign, while now 1t passes TO a man of expert
ence and OF mature years who is in perfect
harmony with existing institutions Victoria
was practically compelled to begin all things
anew, while Edward VII has merely 10 main
tain the things which he finds already estab-
hshed- Moreover, however potent the soyereign's
personality may be, the constitution is after all
supreme, and under it the people. rule through
their chosen Parliament and Ministers That
tact Is the great guarantee of stability and con-
tinuity, and II throws discredit upon the notion
that any change of monarchs could seriorsl,,