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His Majesty has yet to be crowned and the Imperial State Crown was not on his head but carried before Edward VIII as coroneted peers, the jewelled peeresses and M. P.s in black suits stood to hear the new King take his required oath to be a faithful Protestant and accept from Viscount Halifax Lord Privy Seal, his rolled-up Speech from the Throne, written by the Cabinet. This was in the "I," "me," "my" form which is the new King's trademark. Otherwise it was as dull, turgid and noncommittal as Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin could make it. Only arresting feature—and that was arresting only in the United Kingdom—was a promise that His Majesty's Government will introduce a bill taking main motor roads out of the hands of British county officials, all fanatically jealous of their local prerogatives, and vesting these in the Ministry of Transport of smart, blatant Leslie Hore-Belisha who thus scored heavily in his new full Cabinet rank. Since the present Cabinet notoriously let the League of Nations down in the matter of Ethiopia, it was significant that Mr. Baldwin placed in the mouth of his King as the keynote of the Speech from the Throne these words: "The policy of the Government continues to be based on membership in the League."
In the only part of the Speech in which the King sounded as if speaking for himself he said: "I hope, when the solemnity of the Coronation has been celebrated, to revisit the Indian Dominions and there to make known, in the same manner as my revered father, to the princes and the peoples of India my succession to the Imperial Crown."
*Verbatim Court comments are apt to contain an unprintable word or two, but one of the King's staff recently remarked, "Oh yes, he does his job and works hard at it but we can never get at the little —he's always off to Belvedere or someone's house." This was harmlessly and genially meant, much as the Royal Dukes, brothers of His Majesty, are apt to stroll in and heartily inquire, "Well, where's the Bloody Monarch this morning?"