AN UNSEEMLY ATTACK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19406, 16 February 1925, Page 6

AN UNSEEMLY ATTACK.

It is not surprising that the predominant and constitutional section of the House of Commons was strongly irritated last week by the wanton attack of the Labour extremists upon the Prince of Wales. The opinions that were expressed regarding the financial grant to cover expenses of the Prince’s South African expedition will not have given rise to so much offence as the crude and vulgar terms in which they were couched. Perhaps, however, it might be unreasonable to expect urbane mannerliness from persons of the Clydeside Socialist calibre. Mr Kirkwood and some other politicians of his school have evidently been ruffled by Mrs Snowden’s handsome recognition of the way in which the Royal Family won the appreciation of the working classes by its treatment of the late Labour Government, and they have adopted a characteristic method of evincing their chagrin. Their uncouth tactics were not countenanced by the responsible leaders of the party—unless Mr Wheatley is to be regarded as an exception—and Mr Ramsay MacDonald, Mr Thomas, Mr Clynes, and Mr Sidney Webb voted in the majority in favour of the vote to defray the expenses of the South African visit. It should be superfluous to point out that the Prince’s visit will not be of a private character, and the use of such • a term as “pampering” in such a connection is grotesquely out of place. It is once again as Ambassador of Empire—a title which ho has so well earned—that the Heir to the Throne is about to proceed to one of the greatest overseas dominions. That he can rely upon an enthusiastic reception on account both of his representative mission and his incomparably' engaging personality is very certain. If he were disposed to “pamper” his own preferences, he would perhaps plead that these Empire tours, with their incessant round of official functions varying little in nature, tended to a monotony and irksomeness quite out of proportion 'to their pleasure-giving qualities. “I don’t envy the Prince” is a saying which may ha confirmed in a sense other than that in which Mr Kirkwood employed it. But the Prince is keenly responsive to the claims of public duty, and does not spare himself when an Imperial call is heard. It may Just be added that the association of the South African visit (or any other royal project) with the sinister furtherance of “capitalistic” interests is an absurd figment of the Clydeside fancy.