PRINCE OF WALES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 122, 19 November 1926, Page 12

PRINCE OF WALES

TOO MANY INVITATIONS

THREE CATEGOEIES OF DINNERS.

(From, Our Own Corrwpondent.) LONDON, 6th October.

The number of annual dinners which the Prince of Wales has to attend is now- so large that the Prince' has had to make a rule not to accept certain invitations. His decision;is explained in the accompanying letter, sent by the Prince's assistant private, secretary to Captain John Stevenson, general secretary of the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property Agents:— '' The invitation contained in your letter of 16th September has been submitted to the Prince of Wales,, who desires me to ask you' to convey to the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property Agents his sincere appreciation of it. He regrets, however, that, though your society has been so kind as to extend similar- invitations to him on more than one occasion in the past,-it will not be possible for him to attend the anniversary dinner. Of recent years His Boyal Highness has found it increasingly difficult to attend even a small proportion of the many public dinners to -Which he is invited. These dinners,- from : the Prince's point of view at any rate, fall roughly into three categorics —those which have a national or Imperial character, those organised -by the mahy bodies with which he has a direct personal connection, and those held'by-in-dependent societies, such as :ybur owii, which exist for the promotion': of:.one particular science, art, or trade..'"The number of annual dinners in the first two categories at which the Prince's presence is, practically speaking, indispensable, has increased to such an extent that it is now-almost.impos-sible for him to attend' those which belong to the third. In that category,, too, it would obviously be very difficult for him to adopt a selective principle. All such societies" have, from his point-, of view, an equal claim' oh him. He has, therefore, recently decided that, for the present, he must'decline such invitations unless there are vary special reasons against doiiig so. Knowing as he does the value and imiportauce'of the work done by-these societies, he has taken this decision with reluctance. He feels, however, that, the reasons for his doing so will be understood, and that his general sympathy with their aims and objects can, perhaps, be comprehensively shown in other ways."