THE PRINCE OF WALES

Patea Mail, Volume XLVIII, 29 May 1925, Page 3

THE PRINCE OF WALES

WHY HE HAS NOT MARRIED (By C. Ward Price, the distinguished Loudon journalist who is attached to the staff of the Prince of Wales as official correspondent during the present brilliantly successful tour of South Africa.) When the Prince of Wales returns to England, in the course of a few mouths

it will be to settle down at home in a' more permanent way than the duties of his position have hitherto allowed. Ever since he reached manhood, the strong -sense of public service, which is the most striking characteristic of our British Eoyal Family, has imposed upon the Prince of Wales an exceptionally restless and unsettled mode of life. First of all, the war took him abroad on active service, and smee that ended, the desire of boil his lull'd and himself has kept the Prince at the protracted task of becoming personally acquainted with all parts of onr farflung Empire. But now the last stage of this long apprenticeship to his life’s work is being reached. When his tour is over, there is good reason to hope and believe that the Prince of Wales will be able to turn his attention to another matter, in which large numbers of his future subjects feel the keenest interest —that of choosing a wife. WILE NOT BE HURRIED It is a direct result of the Prince’s high personal popularity with, the nation that the public wish to see him make a happy marriage is so strong and widespread. His character and bearing have a charm which has created in millions ot British men and women, who have never so much as set eyes upon him in the flesh, the feeling of a personal bond uniting him and them. Matters which are entirely private in the case of humbler people become, in the ease of Royalty, affairs of a na tional interest. This eagerness for his future wedded welfare has aroused among some sections of the British public a certain impatience. Speculation and gossip follow naturally. Many 'explanations, most of them grotesquely ill-informed, ' have ’ been’ put about for the fact that the Prince of in the early thirties still remains a bachelor. Yet the simplest of them all is' the nearest the truth. It is that the Prince has never yet had occasion to think about marrying. In a matter so important for himself and the nation, he quite rightly does not intend to be hurried. Like many other busy and efficient men, he believes on concentrating on one thing at a time. If there were a Princess of Wales, the Dominions would naturally be most anxious that she should accompany the Prince on his visits. But with , such programmes as that prepared for his tour in 'South Africa —where he spends three months in a train, with hardly a break of more than three or four days —it would bo . impossible for a woman to share in the really serious fatigue and strain of his journeys. ’•"“Were the Prince a married man he could not hope to see the Empire so thoroughly as he now sees it in his travels, and he docs not intend to allow marriage to stand in the way of that. It can bo stated with confidence that the King and Queen agree with their son’s attitude towards the question of his marriage. The days have gone past when the marriage of the Heir to the Throne was a matter to bo settled in his youth by the Monarch and his political advisers, with small regard to the personal preferences of the young man whose domestic future was thus taken our of bis own hands. The Prince of Wales will have a free choice in selecting his bride. Those who know him best arc very positive that he will be guided solely, as he has a right to lie, by his personal feelings and affections. It is possible, of course, that he may take as his wife the daughter of some foreign roya? house. There is no pressure, even of public opinion, upon him to do so. LEISURED DAYS AT HAND On the contrary, the people of Britain want nothing so much as a real love match for their "Prince Charming.’’ One may hazard the guess that no such match is yet in sight. But if the Prince, in the eyes of impatient people, has appeared to tarry unduly, he has at least gained the necessary experience of life and affairs to choose the more wisely when the time comes. The idea that royalty must intermarry only with royalty is a German one, unknown in this country until it was imported by our Hajiovarian Kings. It tended to-the formation of a royal international caste, whose tics of fends, of eousinship, sometimes exercised occult and disastrous inllucncc upon the political relations of their countries. But, though suitable foreign princesses have lately become rarer, charming British girls, with birth, breeding, and beauty that lit them well to share some day the throne of this country, arc plentiful enough. The graceful and efficient way in which the Duchess of York has taken up tile new role to which her marriage called her has shown l how well new British Princesses can be supplied at home. Much of the youth of the Prince ot Wales has now been given to serving his country, both as its First Ambassador, and —what is even more valuable — as its First Commercial Traveller. A lull in these arduous activities is now approaching. If one of the fruits of the more leisured lays that await him were to be his choice of a British bride, it is certain that the delight in liis country would be more universal than at any national events for a generation past.