Leidsch Dagblad
- The Speech from the Throne
The selected opening of the throne speech combines gratitude for the people’s condition with an explicit acknowledgment of difficulties. The paper introduces it as the Queen’s address at the opening of parliament. The policies in the remaining speech are outside this partial reading.
Lower-left throne-speech heading, introductory line and first quoted paragraph only; subsequent policy paragraphs are not included.
Translation
The Speech from the Throne
The Speech from the Throne
At the opening of the session of the States General, Her Majesty the Queen delivered the following speech:
“Members of the States General, as I stand among you, I rejoice that the condition of Our People gives cause for gratitude in many respects, although there are also darker aspects.”
Context
A government program in the monarch’s voice
The Speech from the Throne announces the government’s plans at the opening of the parliamentary year. Although the monarch delivers it in the first person, it belongs to the working relationship between government and parliament, not simply to a royal personal address. The opening in this paper sets the tone before the policy discussion that follows.
An annual national occasion
September 21, 1926 was the third Tuesday of the month, the date associated with Prinsjesdag. Since 1904 the speech had been delivered in the Hall of Knights in The Hague. Its appearance in a local newspaper brought the formal opening of national politics into readers’ everyday news, connecting a ceremony in the capital’s political institutions with communities elsewhere.
Reassurance before difficult questions
The Queen’s opening combines gratitude with an acknowledgment of darker conditions. Addressing all members in the same sentence gives the speech a collective frame before particular interests and policies enter the debate. That balance matters in a parliamentary address: it invites a shared view of the country without claiming that its problems have disappeared.
Original
De Troonrede. Bij de opening van de zitting der Staten-Generaal heeft H. M. de Koningin de volgende rede uitgesproken: In Uw midden verkeerend, Leden van de Staten-Generaal, verheug Ik Mij, dat de toestand van Ons Volk in menig opzicht tot dankbaarheid stemt, al ontbreken de schaduwzijden niet.
De Troonrede.
Bij de opening van de zitting der Staten-Generaal heeft H. M. de Koningin de volgende rede uitgesproken:
In Uw midden verkeerend, Leden van de Staten-Generaal, verheug Ik Mij, dat de toestand van Ons Volk in menig opzicht tot dankbaarheid stemt, al ontbreken de schaduwzijden niet.
Source: Source: Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken (leiden.courant.nu)