THE ROYAL WEDDING.

Evening Star, Issue 21891, 30 November 1934, Page 8

THE ROYAL WEDDING.

The greatest family gathering that the world has ever known had its part yesterday in the wedding of Prince George, Duke of Kent, to the Princess Marina. Despite its pomp and pageantry, the presence of Royalties from all parts of Europe, the exigencies of space which, kept all but a few of the assembled multitude outside the great Abbey, “ family gathering ” is the term that best describes the event. Internationally it had no importance. Greece is not one of the great kingdoms of Europe, whose friendship it might be an advantage to bind to us by Royal .ties. It is not even a kingdom at all. The wedding had no more significance from the viewpoint of national statesmanship. It was the youngest son of the King who was being married, and he has three older brothers. But it was a marriage in the Royal Family, and the Royal Family is a part of the Imperial family which reaches to all portions of the globe. Royalty no longer rules the British nation, but it belongs to it, as a symbol and an example and a centre of unity; and affection, for the last hundred years, has grown steadily to strengthen that sense of possession, which before, for a thousand years, had been a tradition. British crowds are interested—even agog with interest—in everything that happens to any member of the Royal Family, because they feel that all of them are part of their own great general family. They are the most splendid part of it, but not on that account less human or less kindly, or in any essential sense removed from themselves. And the family throughout the Empire has the same feeling. The marriage has interested the Empire, in addition, because everyone loves a pageant; everyone loves a love match, and science had found means to let everyone participate in this happy Imperial family event as could never be done before. The Archbishop of Canterbury made that point well when he said: “Never in history has a marriage been attended by so vast a company of witnesses, for a new and marvellous invention of science joins in the service the whole nation, nay the whole Empire, as wedding guests, and more than guests, members of the family. It must be most moving to you to know that this wealth of good wishes and goodwill is being offered to you as their wedding gift.” The service, with its magnificent simplicity, was heard in Dunedin almost as well as it could have been in the Abbey itself. If Mr John Masefield, now in Australia, wishes to produce a poem on it, with his knowledge of the Abbey he should be able to do so without one disadvantage from nob being present. But the cables, succeeding the_ wireless, seem to have done full justice to the auspicious ceremony, and PoetSLaureate are seldom as happy in commemorating Sueh occasions as was Tennyson in the lines which he wrote to the Princess Frederica of Hanover on her marriage: 0 you that were eyes and light to the King till he passed away Frbm the darkness of life— He saw not his daughter—he blest her; the blind King sees you te-day, He blesses the wife.