The Duties of Royalty.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 916, 20 September 1889, Page 5

The Duties of Royalty.

The representative duties of Royalty in England, as the Times once pointed out, are heavier than the private functions which the hardest-worked Englishman has to perform. One day the Prince of Wales plays his part in an ecclesiastical pageant in Cornwall ; two days later he is introducing a foreign sovereign to the Corporation of London ; and on the next we find him formally opening a harbour at Holyhead. In these scenes, and a hundred like them 4 the Prince’s

functions cannot be discharged satisfactorily unless be be at once an impersonation of Royal state, and, what is harder still, his own individual self. He must act his public character as if he enjoyed the festival as much as any of the spectators. He must be able to stamp a national impress upon the solemnity, yet mark its local and particular significance. In presenting the King of the Helenes to the citizens of Guildhall, for insfcanoe, the Prince of Wales had to remember that his guest, and the guest of the city, was both a near and dear relative, and an embodiment of an illustrious cause. In laying the first stone of the cathedral at Truro he had to be both Duke of Cornwall and the heir of England. In presiding at Holyhead, he had to recollect the provincial associations connected with the title he bears, and not to forget the importance of the work which created a new link between two great divi : Bions of the United Kingdom. Theße are but samples of the every-day life of the Prince of Wales, and the experience of his work which the nation now has.justifies the conclusion that his Royal Highness will always achieve the task of the moment, whatever it may happen to be, successfully and well. No apprehension ever seizes thoss who are present at a scene of which the Prince of Wal- s is the central figure lest His Royal Highness may chance to chill by lack of interest, to choose his words of admiration inopportunely, or to praise without sympathy.—Prince, Princess, and Peoplo, by Henry C. Burdefct.