HER MAJESTY'S VISIT TO NIGERIA (Hansard, 21 February 1956)

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH
My Lords, my colleagues and I desire to be heartily associated with the noble Earl the Deputy Leader of the House in supporting this Address to Her Majesty the Queen. We welcome them back with the greatest possible warmth of feeling in our hearts. I venture to say that there are hundreds of thousands of her subjects in this country who have already rendered thanes to God for their safe return after a journey which, as the noble Earl put it, has been by no means a holiday. To be catapulted from this strange climate of ours at this time of the year into the great heat, at times very humid heat, of Nigeria, was a great trial in itself; and to come back to the icy grip which winter has laid on this land at the moment is not exactly the next best change to have. We are thankful that it seems that the health of neither Her Majesty nor the Duke has suffered. We are very grateful for that.
To us who watched the newspapers, looked at television, or listened to wireless reports, the whole visit seemed to be conducted in accordance with the highest traditions of the constitutional Monarchy of this country. The human, individual sympathy of Her Majesty in the choice which she herself made of her visits truly conveyed to the people of Nigeria what she felt for their welfare and how much is our regard for their future prosperity and progress. When she laid a wreath at the memorial to Mary Slessor, the great Scottish missionary, I was reminded of the words which appear on that memorial: The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. This brings vividly to our minds the fact that the whole colonial record of this country is not so bad as it is sometimes painted, and that where the true light has been properly followed it cannot but have helped to show the way to the gradual changes in the world which must surely come without hatred and without the horrors of human conflict and warfare. What the tender, poetic youth dreams, prays and paints to-day, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently become the resolutions of public bodies, thence to be carried by Bill of Grievance and, Rights until it is the establishment of law for a hundred years, and then to give place to new prayers, new dreams, new pictures. 1131 So the American essayist painted the progress of his people. Recently I have been reading some of the dispatches from the Governors in the great American Colonies in the 18th century. If we had had then with America the form of the present relationship between the Crown and our people with overseas territories, what a different story would have been told about our Empire and our Commonwealth! We must praise God that we have such a lead from Her Majesty and her Consort, although she proves, as almost the last word in Bacon's essay on Empire says, that Princes have much veneration but no rest. We must praise God that Her Majesty gives a great lead to the whole of our peoples in the Commonwealth and exercises an influence upon the spirit of man in the world from which we may hope very much.

LORD REA
My Lords, I do not speak merely for the noble Lords on these Benches; I rise to support, as every Member in every part of the House would wish to support, the Motion proposed by the noble Earl the Deputy Leader of the House. The loyal and affectionate welcome which we offer to Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness is in a conventional formula, but its repeated use far from dilutes its sincerity. It becomes increasingly pertinent as, time after time, we look with gratitude upon our own privilege in having at the Head of the State such a gracious and well-loved manifestation of monarchy.
The deep personal interest which Her Gracious Majesty and His Royal Highness take in the welfare, the happiness and the prospects of those who in all parts of the world are fortunate enough to be her subjects, and the visit to Nigeria which Her Majesty and His Royal Highness have just made, so valuable in its impact, cannot fail to arouse in us who live in the Mother Country a feeling of pride that our brothers and sisters in Africa can to-day share with us, in a way which would have been virtually impossible a generation or two ago, the benefit and the delight—if I may, with great respect, use that word—of physical proximity to the Crown. After the atmospheric exaggerations to which Her Majesty and His Royal Highness have so ungrudgingly exposed themselves in the 1132 last month, we couple with our welcome a humble hope that, joined once again with their family, they may allow themselves a well-earned measure of relaxation and repose.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
My Lords, this Motion, with all the thoughts and feelings which lie behind its brevity of words, has the thankful and enthusiastic support of us all. To what has been already admirably said I wish to add only one further reflection. Just as centuries ago, in the beginnings of our national history, the Christian Church played its essential part in building up the character and the fortunes of our people, so in these early stages of Nigeria's national history the Christian Churches are endeavouring to play the same part for them—no less. Not the least splendid feature of Her Majesty's visit has been the encouragement it has given to all the Christian peoples of Nigeria. Nearly a century ago the first Anglican Diocese was formed on the Niger, and its first Bishop, in 1864, was a Nigerian, Bishop Samuel Crowther. Slowly since then Church and country have developed side by side. Lagos became a Bishopric in 1919. Then, in the post-war years, the country, and with it the Church, moved together rapidly into new ways in which they direct their own fortunes.
The Church in Nigeria is part of an independent province of Western Africa. It was formed only in 1951. Since then four new Dioceses have been added; and of the six Bishops, four of them are Nigerian-born. Along with this have gone the similar contributions of all the other Christian Churches in this country. I have already heard accounts of the profound impression made by Her Majesty and the Duke by their attendance Sunday by Sunday, at Divine Service, and by the simplicity and sincerity of their sharing in it with their Nigerian subjects. I know what it has meant to the Nigerian Bishops, Bishop Howells at Lagos, and an eighty-year-old veteran, Bishop Akinyele, at Ibadan, and to all their people, that they should have had the honour of preaching before Her Majesty, of worshipping with her, and of recalling, as they did, memories still vivid in their hearts of the contributions that Queen Victoria made in her day to the building up of their 1133 faith. Her Majesty's visit has brought to every part of Nigeria, and to every side of its life, renewal of grace, of courage, of confidence and of unity. At the deepest of all levels it has brought new life to those who are seeking to build the fortunes of this great country on the foundations of Christian faith, freedom and fellowship.