HOME COMING OF THE PRINCE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3131, 21 August 1922, Page 8

HOME COMING OF THE PRINCE.

(iiy Sir Philip Gibbs).

LONDON'S .JOY DAY.

Bronzed, with the lines of Ins lace a little sharpened and lined by hot sun and hard travel, hut with his smile the same as ever, the Prince of Wales came home again to London and had as great a welcome as ever the old city has given to a Prince of Youth. There are times when London is a grim and gloomy place for a homecoming, in fogs and rain, but yesterday it was as beautiful as it can look on a .lime day even to eyes of travellers who, like the Prince, have seen the white magic of Oriental cities and ‘the sun-baked spledour of their palaces and mosques. Sitting by the King’s side, as he drove through the old familiar streets after 10.00(3 miles of wandering, the spirit of London, the sound old heart of London, and Ins place in it, must have seemed good to him, and restful. So cool and green after those far places where he walked under the weight of a snn-hclmet with heat striking up from the earth and the snn smiting his eyes. So homelike and English and unchanged, with these crowds kept back by “Bobbies',” and waving handkerchiefs out of high windows, and cheering, cheering, as he has seen them so often.

Perhaps ho was glad to see the flowers blooming in the parks, and the red tire of the geranium-beds outside Buckingham Palace, and the new touch of white paint picking up the brown old walls of St. James', and the green of the trees behind his own house, which, as he once said, had "the best backyard in London." After all his months of absence he had a. look in his eyes of gladness to be home in dear dirty old London, so old. and so good, to those who know her as he does.

This welcome, this ovation of great crowds of smiling, cheering, waving folk, was a reward for the tremendous fatigue of a big job done well and truly, for England's sake, with untiring zeal, though often tired. Now home !

It was not lor a pageant that people came out in their millions to stand for hours packed tight on narrow pavements on a warm .June day. There was an intimate personal reason why crowd's of well-dressed women, with great, numbers of old ladies among them took their scats on the kerbsoncs outside the Palace, and up by the Marble Arch, as early as 0 o'clock in the morning, reinforced as the hours passed by battalions of young giris, legions of old men. children of all ages, fellows' walking stiffly with the help of sticks, blind men who would not know when the Prince passed except by the noise about them, youngish men in civil clothes but with buttons and medals in their jackets.

These people had come out to give a welcome home to a boy who stands m a speeial way as the type and Prince of English boyhood. They have never touched bauds with him. perhaps, nor ever will, but his picture, bis smile on the "movies.'" all that they have read and heard about him, his own spoken words, and the duly lie has done, have given him a particular place in their imagination arid sentiment. It is not because he is extraordinary that lie has captured the English heart. With his boyish smile, his shy. fidgety way when the public ga/.e is on bun, his love of games, his keen sense of humor, his jaunty way, he is typical, as all of us like to think, of what is best and jolliest and healthiest in English youth, as we saw it before it was cut down in sheaves, somewhere in Prance.

I have henrd sonic of the Indies tnJUnijj; in the crowd, and it was that thought that seemed uppermost in their minds. ".England is all right as long as we have boys like that." said one of them". And another said: "My Dick used to see. him sometimes round about Ypres. He was one of them." That memory of comradeship in a great and grim adventure, in. which boyhood won all there was to win. was recalled to some minds ai least by Yesterday's welcome home. Those GOOf) police and 1000 "specials," who kept the crowds so good-humoircd-lv, so patiently, were out to guaird tho wav for ;„ lad- who was one of the "Comrade* of the Great "War" in wlncb they won all those big' medals which glinted in the sun. One of them had kept the traffics—of gun-carriages and mules and endfe*: columns of men mulching through the endless rain of Flemish winters —between Poperiughe and Yyres. He must have seen a "young lieutenant," with one "pip" on his s,houkler-*strap. pushing his way on a bicycle through all that surging tide, on days of battle. He did not'like to be saluted as their Prince. There were men in the crowds yc-s----tcrdaj who were up by Wyghtsehueto and Mes&hics when a young officer, promoted now to captain's rank, elinibcd the hills when "things" were Falling and making new .shell botes between eld shell holes, with very ugly noise*}. On all parte of the front, in. dirty places, not health resorts, o young officer, who was the Prince of Wales, was seen by men who were glad to know that he shared seine of their risk* and liked the spice of danger, with a boy's pluck, and knew :.i«d understood. It was that memory which brought .some of the fellows hito the streets with a word, passed one to the other as 1 heard it pass. "He's a sport, all right." That memory of old grim days was not the inspiration which brought millions of pretty girls into the streets. Simply stated, they are all in love with him, with his smile, with his gallantry. with the touch of roguisliness in hi* eyes, as the beau ideal of English boyhood. They had put on their best frocks lor him. brought out their brightest sunshades to wave "Hullo!" to him. I>y a lucky chance it was Queen Alexandra's Day', and all the rose-girls were in the streets, and not a man or woman or hoy or child along all the line of route but had a rose in button-liolte or hat, and some were garlanded. "Wear ro.-es for the Prince!" said a, placard. but the reminder was not needed', and there was a glinting kaleidoscope of color on the pavements with these roses and these summer frocks, and these living (lowers of English, girlhood. For the Prince of Youth it was a, pretty paticant on his way. The old unchanging tradition of London, partly conscious, mostly unconscious, linked up with history, with popular sentiment, with the jolly vulgarity of the London crowd, was reestablished yesterday in a way which must have seemed strange to any foreigner with watchful eyes. In' the sky, as a'sign of modernity—perhaps, ala-s. as a dreadful portentaeroplanes were flying. 'But up St. .lames' street, on the way to Paddington, drove the Lord Mayor's coach, like Dick YYhittington's, with white wigs and cocked hats and standing footmen. A Pield Escort of Life Guards with the sunlight Hashing on casque and breastplate (as though a khaki war in mud and ditches had never been fought) brought back the pageantry of peace-time soldiers. In the crowds was the spirit of prewar England. Negro minstrels twanged their banjos. A man with a ; cornetplayed "(»od Bless the Prince of Wales" down a side street off St. James's. The same old jokes, as old as

Queen Anne, were made by the waiting crowds when the mounted police obscured their view. The inevitable dog ran to and fro the empty roads. The Cockney humor of the back streets passed comments on the silken dresses of Mayfair and the Kensingtons. Tt was the spirit of London, rich and poor, which in all its types and qualities of character came out to give the Prince a welcome home. There was nothing but this immense tribute of personal homage and affection in the end of the journey of the Prince of. Wales —the last lap from Paddington Station to Buckingham Palace, and then to Marlborough House. None of tlioso who had waited for hours saw Em for more than a second or two, except on the station, platform. There at Paddington there was a family scene when the King and Queen, with Queeii Alexandra, Prince Henry, Princess Mary, and Viscount Lascelles had the delight of greeting the young Prince after his long absence of eight months. On one of the platforms was a grandstand, draped in red and gold, for a number of special* guests, who included the Prime Min-" ister, the Earl of Balfour, Viscount Birkenhead, Lord Lee of Fareham, Sir Ha mar Greenwood, Mr Fisher, the Lord Mayor, and others. To the very second, at 3.30, the train drew in, and the Prince jumped down, and heartily embraced his family, who surrounded him for a few minutes, and then made way for bis greetings with the Prime Minister and others.

The King looked proud and pleased with his son, and it was obvious to all the people that he desired the Prince to acknowledge alone the tremndous heart-stirring cheers which rose up from London as soon as the. Royal carriage appeared, with the Prince sitting by the King's side, with the Duke of York opposite, preceded and followed by the escort of Life Guards.

The houses all along the route were decorated with flags' and streamers. To I ell the truth, many of them; were laded and bedraggled, not having been brought out since the day of the Victory March. ' There was no kwishness or splendor ill those decoration®. And tliat was right, in these bard times. For better than bunting was the fire of enthiistaßin which lit up the eyes of old folk and young because this Prince' of boys was home again. Apart from all ordinary sentiment, the love of an English crowd' for a Royal "show," the hero-worship of women for gallant youth, there was something in London's welcome, to the Prince of Wales reaching to deeper roots than that.

So it seemed to me, standing in the crowds, trying to analyse their emotion and my own. For this-' Prince, by his name Mid title, reaching back to the old romance of English history, by the office thai, one day will 1 be his, and by bin- youth and quality, stands as a symbol and as a hope of the future destiny of our race, and country. The old traditions have seemed threatened by changing times and present perils. On this- journey of hie in India and the East this Prince of ours took risks which seemed for a time; to menace the very safety of the Empire, at least to forebode a challenge to the power of his people. Youth, itself and the leadership of its spirit has seemed to weaken a. little after yearn of sacrifice.