THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 12, Issue 936, 21 April 1868, Page 3

THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH.

[From the • Melbourne Herald, 1 April 6.] Pbinge Alfred, it is. understood, sails in the Galatea this day from Sydney direct for England. This is certainly a matter for regret. It has an ugly look even here ; and how will it appear in England P Undoubtedly it is natural that so young a man as the Prince — one, too, who has never before been far from home, or absent from it for any length of time — should hasten back to assure his Royal mother and anxious friends by the best of all proof— his own presence in the flesh and in perfect safety — that his would-be assassin has utterly failed in endangering his life. But there is something beyond this which ought to animate a Royal personage against taking a step that will wear such an undesirable aspect in reference to the character of the large and important communities of British subjects located here in the Australian colonies. It might have been expected that his Royal Highness would recognise the propriety and the necessity of not doing what will have the effect of putting the Australian colonists in a false light before the British public. This hasty departure from our boundaries will look as if the Prince had been driven off from our shores by the hostile attitude of a portion of our population. It will, in the eyes of that numerous section of the Press and the public in England who view everything Australian with distorted vision, be accepted as proof positive of our being the degraded, lawless set they always represent us to be — a population who have turned liberty into license, and who are incapable of appreciating the confidence placed in us by Royalty in coming amongst us as a visitor. It will, too, add to the panic created in England by the Fenian outrages there ; it will aggravate it, and exasperate the tone of public feeling. How great that panic still was even at the departure of the last European mail, those alone here who have fully examined the English newspapers can affirm. As the Army and Navy Gazette pointed out, it was incredible, something almost ludicrous. At the principal naval ports, such as Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham, Woolwich, at Portland and W^eymouth, and inland at Worcester, Leamington, Leicester, and a thousand and one other places, troops were on the alert afloat and ashore, resting on their arms night and day ; magistrates sitting en permanence on the bench, to investigate what generally turned out to be some trumpery charge against a drunken brawler brought by an overzealous policeman, or to have the contents of an annoymous letter examined, or to listen to some exaggerated and unfounded rumours — whilst in London something akin to universal terror pervaded all classes.

Look at New Zealand, it will further be said — the place which the Prince intended to visit next. At the very moment when the assassin aimed his dastardly blow at the Prince's life in Sydney, lawless processions of Fenians were marching through the goldfields townships of New Zealand, and openly vaunting their disloyalty. How could his Royal Highness trust his valuable life amongst such lawless ruffians ? No ; the Prince was right to come out at once from amongst these Philistines, and leave them to their uncouth displays of what we now see was a sham loyalty — a treacherous welcome. This will be the style of reasoning respecting the Prince's return which will be resorted to by the Saturday Review, the Tall Mall Gazette, and those other newspapers, which before this most lamentable attack on the Prince, could bring themselves only to sneer at, and misinterpret, our effusive loyalty to his Royal Highness. And there are but too many of the different classes of the British public who will accept this view of the matter, and pronounce us infamous, and a disgrace to the British name.