ELUSIVE PRINCE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 91, 14 October 1935, Page 10

ELUSIVE PRINCE

INTIMATE INTERVIEW

"I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY'!,

A few weeks ago /there passed through Wellington on. Jus way to Tahiti Prince Kail yon Schoenburg Waldenburg, who is related to the exKing of Spain and to the former Royal House of Saxony. The Prince, who has a very retiring^ disposition, followed out' his usual practice of avoiding publicity. Although he was tracked over a considerable part of Wellington city he successfully - j eluded Press interviewers. ' - '

This morning •he returned from.; his visit to the South Sea ;islands_on the Maunganui from San Francisco, but such were his circumstances when he first arrived that he was unable to avoid being interviewed. . While the Maunganui was steaming to her berth at the Taranaki Street Wharf a "Post" reporter called on the Prince iri his cabin. .He was in' the -process of getting dressed; he had only donned his underwear . when he invited the reporter to come in. He was not iri the least embarrassed —it, was' the other who blushed confusedly—and after the usual introduction he smiled and said: "I have nothing to say. I am only good for Hollywood according, to you." He explained that one New Zealand newspaper referred, to him in this, light .when he passed through Wellington on his way 'to the Islands.

-,_Tlie Prince, who •is about 35 years of age, has fair hair and is-slim* without being too tall; and lias a-com-manding personality. "Although he has never received any academic training in English, he speaks the . language with a fascinating accent. He learned to speak English while travelling. He is marrida and his home is in Rome. He said that he had been living in Italy for the past twenty years. One of his ambitions, he said, was to see the South Sea Islands, and when the opportunity to visit them arose he took it.' He was much impressed with what he saw, and expressed a wish to return later.

Asked if he would make any comment concerning the abdication of the King of Spain, the Prince shook his head and remarked: "No, it would not be politic". '■■■.■ When the reporter first addressed the Prince as "your Highness,"' he promptly replied: "I am -not that." Then, after a pause during which■ he pulled on a silk sock, he added: "Oh, well, perhaps I am." ' ' '

During the whole of the interview the Prince casually dressed himself, and it was not until he had carefully tied the knot in his tie that he bid the reporter good-bye. • The Royal House of Saxony was disbanded in 1918. On November 9of that year a revolution broke out, and a few days later the republic was proclaimed. King Frederick Augustus abdicated on November 13, 1918. In 1923 the strong revolutionary feeling of the Saxons was shown by the proceedings of the Zeigber Ministry, which depended upon an alliance of Socialists and Communists. It was expelled from office by the Reich Government, which occupied the country with troops and replaced the Ministry by a coalition of the German People's Party, Democratic Party and right-wing Socialists.