A LETTER FROM LONDON

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 45, 16 November 1929, Page 13

A LETTER FROM LONDON

BIOGRAPHY OF THE PRINCE OF WALES

TROUBLE AHEAD FOR THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT

Dominion Special Service.

London, October 3. The Princess Royal, the King’s eldest sister, who was taken ill this week, is the least known member of the Royal Family, for although her unmarried sister, Princess Victoria, has played practically no part in public life, her close attendance upon the late Queen-Mother made of her a more familiar figure on Royal occasions. The Princess Royal has always taken as little part in ceremonial as is consistent with her position, and her personal tastes are simple. Perhaps the bestknown fact about her is that she has always been, as her husband, the late Duke of Fife, was, a lover of the theatre, and she is an accomplished musi- • clan. An expert angler, she has caught many a salmon on the Dee when staying at Mar Lodge. She delights in little acts of kindness to those who least expect them, and there are many people who can tell tales of her graciousness. The love match with the Duke of Fife, who was not of Royal blood, took the fancy of a public little used to such episodes, and the Princess, then a girl of 22, was surrounded by an atmosphere of romance for years. Some five years ago she was taken ill in London with gastric haemorrhage, but recovered in the health-giving air of Mar Lodge, her home in the Highlands. Her two daughters are Princess Arthur, of Connaught, who is Duchess of Fife in her own right, and Princess Maud (Lady Maud Carnegie). There was one dramatic incident in her later life, when with the duke and their two daughters she was shipwrecked off Tangier and was in great danger. Soon afterwards the duke died in Egypt, and the Princess Royal has led a secluded life ever since. Smooth—So Far. The annual Labour Conference has been unusually peaceful. There have been one or two little scenes, but generally an atmosphere of ..quiet has’ prevailed, and the Left wing has not asserted itself very prominently. Matters might have ben more lively had Mr. MacDonald himself been present and available for “heckling,” but no doubt there was a feeling among the delegates that any trouble at the conference would react unfavourably on the Prime Minister’s mission, and so the Left wing remained quiescent. So far, everything has gone well with the Labour Government, but there are indications of trouble ahead in connection with the unemployment problem. All the issues which Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and his colleagues have dealt with so far have been foreign and International. Domestic issues will now have to be faced. Mr. Thomas made a long and interesting speech on unemployment, but it was a speech which might have been delivered by a Conservative Minister, and it disclosed no comprehensive plans for tackling the greatest difficulty of the hour. It was the insistence of Labour candidates at the election that their party had a definite remedy for unemployment which was largely responsible for their victory at the polls, and now it would seem that the Labour Government has no fresh solution to propound, and is, in fact, in very much the same position as its predecessors in office.

This is not a very satisfactory situation. The Left wing wants something bold and decisive done, which would at once justify the Socialist claims and reduce unemployment, while the more moderate members of the party are a little uneasy at finding their election promises more or less unredeemed. The autumn session will be a testing time, for it is then that the Government will embark upon legislation. The Prince’s Career.

In the much-discussed biography of the Prince of Wales by two young Northern journalists, who have made skilful use of much miscellaneous material collected from various sources, the reader is taken on a conducted tour through all the phases of the Prince's life. He is told that of all the six children the Prince was by far the most troublesome as a small baby, yet be was from the first the special favourite of Queen Victoria. He early disliked lessons almost as much as official speeches, and his favourite retort when found out in some childish misdemeanour was: “Grandma said I could do it!” Queen Alexandra did, indeed, cover him on many occasions. Later the Prince was to develop the usual propensities for mischief in a small boy “full of beans,” and in the various escapades of the “naughty trio” of princes he was always the ring-leader. And so in easy stages the reader

passes through the Prince’s early life —Dartmouth, his investiture as Prince of Wales at Carnarvon’ his visits abroad, his appointment as a midshipman on H.M.S. Hindustan —where it was stipulated he was to receive no privilege on account of his rank —and then his arrival at Magdalen College. Oxford, and his annoyance at the fuss made over him. This was the turning point of his career. He was to leave Oxford for France, and it was in France, as this book clearly shows, that he was to find himself. The story of the war years is told at length. The Prince simply felt it his duty to go, and hated the restraints put upon his departure. For the first time he was to gain a knowledge of the responsibilities and the commitments of Royalty. He was torn between a persistent attempt to outwit his "wardens" (as he called tlie staff officers who were detailed. to watch his movements), and the desire to “play the game” and save them from the trouble which his successful "getaway” would entail. His first brush was with no less a person than Lord Kitchener. “Have I not four brothers?” he said in answer to Kitchener’s refusal. “If I were certain » you would be shot,” answered Kitchener, “I do not know if I would be right to restrain you. What I cannot permit is the chance, which exists until We have a settled .line, of the enemy securing you as prisoner.” His War Experiences. Once when the Prince was missing, anxiety became consternation. Staff officers raced off in high-powered cars in search over the various sectors. Seeing a light-on the side of the road, those in one of the cars stopped to impiire if the Prince had passed that way. The officer discovered the* Prince playing cards with a party of French troops by the light of a candle. Close at hand was the Prince's motorcycle smashed to pieces. The Prince had struck a shell hole. On another occasion he returned to his car to find It a mass of wreckage, the result of a German shell, and his chauffeur, who had been with him since his Oxford

days, blown to pieces. He wrapped the man’s personal belongings in his handkerchief and had them sent to the relatives. Once when the Queen was talking to a Belgian refugee at the Victoria Station canteen, London, she was surprised to hear that her companion’s son had recently seen His Royal Highness walking swiftly down a certain road in a village in Flanders, alone. Suddenly an enemy Taube came roaring overhead and began to bomb the neighbouring houses. Pulling his steel helmet more securely on his head, the Prince ran for shelter, which was the cellar of the village post office. Here he found several wounded men lying, awaiting the ambulance, to take them to a base hospital. They were being attended by some French nuns. When the ambulance and doctors eventually arrived, they found the Prince in his shirt sleeves holding bandages and hot water for the ministering nuns. There is a cryptic sentence in a report of Earl French’s when he had been remarking on the Prince’s duties as liaison officer. “His Royal Highness did duty for a time in the trenches with a battalion to which he belonged.” Which suggests that he saw his full share of warfare. Later he was to appear on most of the fronts. “I must do my duty and put up with the hardships just like the other fellows,” was his reiterated remark. The rceords of the Prince’s later life, as Ambassador of Empire, are fresh in the public mind. We must leave him “seated in his easy chair with his favourite pipe between his teeth and a good mystery story in his hand.” A Wonderful Union. The union of the Free a'ud Established Churches in Scotland, which comes into being this week, marks a most amazing development in the religious outlook of Scotland. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Scotsman who, on his return from abroad, was delighted to see “the bonny U.P. kirks ’standing in a row” would be sadly disappointed to-day. The United Presbyterian Church which, Disraeli said, was invented by the Jesuits for the confusion of Scotch theology, was long ago united with the Free Church, and now the Free Church and the Established Church have reached an agreement. They have discovered that their community of purpose far exceeds any differences of doctrine or practice, and so, gradually, they will become one homogeneous body. There are a few stalwarts standing out against this religious “merger,” but like the “Wee Frees” they arc powerless against the general feeling in the two great churches. . The union is fine evidence of the Christian spirit and ecclesiastical statesmanship of the leaders of the two churches, and they certainly ‘ have deserved well of the country. But what will become of the village theologians without any fine points of divergence to discuss? Changes in Whitehall. The Government are anxious to bring to Whitehall some of the Civil servants • now housed in expensive offices in various parts of London, but as there seems to - be little hope of any substantial reduction in the present Whitehall staff, there is no chance of accommodating newcomers. The scheme proposed is to demolish the old houses in Whitehall Gardens and to replace them by a magnificent building facing the Cenotaph and the Treasury.. The Ministry of Transport and the Cabinet Secretariat are at present quartered in these houses. Such a scheme would be received with mixed feelings by lovers of Old London. Whitehall derives its name from the ancient palace of Whitehall, and has many historical associations. The original palace was built for Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, from whom it passed to Walter Grey, Archbishop of York. Cardinal Wolsey, a later occupant, surrendered it to King Henry VIII. in 1530, and that monarch had it enlarged, and added the gardens and orchards of Scotland Yard. The oldest of the houses at present standing in Whitehall Gardens is No. 7, occupied by the Minister of Transport. Originally known as Pembroke House, it contains many art treasures, including a number of original carved ceilings, fireplaces, oak doors, and other valuable objects. Another interesting fact is that an old boathouse is still standing at the back of the building, indicating that before the embankment was built the Thames ran alongside the gardens. But the old houses may still survive, for the cost of carrying out the new building would exceed any economies to be gained by the giving up of privately owned buildings. Letters of Disraeli. There has been an extension of the great Disraelian saga in the publication under the editorship of the Marquis of Zetland of the letters that Disraeli wrote to Lady Bradford and Lady Chesterfield, “The Miraculous Sisters,” as he called them, between 1873, just after his wife’s death, and 1881, when he himself died. His wife, the adoring Mary Anne, died on September 15, 1872, leaving him disconsolate, for it was an essential part of his being that he should have women about him. “I like sympathy,” he wrote, "but male sympathy does not suit mo; and I am fastidious as to the other sex.”

His thoughts then wandered back to two beautiful women whom he had known before they married. They were two of the five pretty daughters of Lord Forester. The elder, Lady Chesterfield, now widowed, had married in 1833, while the younger. Lady Bradford, was still a happy wife. In all, he penned about a thousand letters to Lady Bradford, to whom lie was most devoted, and nearly five hundred to her sister, Lady Chesterfield, whom lie wished to marry, mainly because it was impossible to become ttie consort of her sister. Yet he continued to wear the hatband of mourning, and his stationery was always edged with deep black, even I hough Lady Bradford rallied him on it. He told the women everything, pouring forth his troubles, his likes, and dislikes, his encounters with Gladstone, and his meetings with the Queen, as when lie wrote, in August, 1874: “I really thought she was going to embrace me. She was wreathed in smiles, and as she walked she glided about like a bird.” Or, again: “The Faery was very gracious. She says I am never to stand.” Disraeli wrote to Lady Bradford that he had just made the historic purchase of the Suez Canal shares, “an event,” he adds, “which is not the least important for a genera-

tion.” This is the first evidence we have in black and white that a British Prime Minister has given a “great State secret,” as Lord Beaconsfield calls it, to a friend before it was public property.