trieve the misfortunes of war. It was King
Edward's Imperial policy that dictated the sending of the Prince of
Wales to open the first Parliament of the Union of South Africa--a
policy which his own death rendered impossible--as curiously enough, it
had been Queen Victoria's last public duty to send the Duke of
Cornwall--as he then was--to open the first Parliament of the Australian
Commonwealth. It was the King who sent the Duke of Connaught to visit
East Africa in 1906 and Prince Arthur of Connaught to return from Japan
_via_ Canada in the same year. To the people of Australia Lord
Northcote, the new Governor-General, on January 28, 1904, conveyed a
Royal Message of greeting and then proceeded to say that: "Every
constitutional process having for its object the linking together of the
different component parts of this great Empire is sure to be
sympathetically regarded by our Sovereign and I know his hope is that
his people who live outside the narrow seas of Great Britain may believe
that His Majesty regards them primarily, not as inhabitants of colonies
or dependencies of the Mother-country, but as equally valued component
parts of one mighty nation."

As to Canada and King Edward much might be said. On July 22, 1905,
His Majesty was at Bisley and presented the Kolapore Cup to the
proud Canadian team which had won it and to whose Commander,
Lieutenant-Colonel A. G. Hesslein, a few kind and tactful words were
addressed. About the same time it was announced that the London Hospital
Fund in which the King had for many years taken a deep personal
interest, and in the maintenance of which he was really the chief power,
had received a gift of $1,000,000 from Lord Mount Stephen of Canadian
Pacific Railway fame. In 1906 His Majesty showed special interest in
Canadian affairs. A cablegram through Lord Elgin, on January 2d,
expressed the King's regret at the sudden death of the Honorable R.
Prefontaine; he received Canadian delegates to the Empire Commercial
Congress at Windsor on July 13th, when Sir D. H. McMillan, Sir Sandford
Fleming, Messrs. R. Wilson-Smith, G. E. Drummond, F. H. Mathewson, J. F.
Ellis and W. F. Cockshutt were presented; a deputation of Indian chiefs
from British Columbia was received by him on August 13th and submitted
an address and a petition; a number of shire-horses were lent by His
Majesty in the autumn for exhibition at Toronto and as a proof of his
interest in that branch of Canadian development.