PRINCE OF WALES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 13091, 3 June 1913, Page 9

PRINCE OF WALES.

THE SUBJECT OP MARRIAGE

A London correspondent writes : — The announcement that negotiations have been opened for the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Czar's daughter has revived again the whole question of ' royal marriages. The problem becomes increasingly difficult because of the diminution of European monarchs of the first order. Already the leading royal families into which marriage is possible without too much concession of dignity are closely related by blood. I The part /touch royalty has to play, in England at least, does not of necessity call for great mental capacity or a commanding physique. But, nevertheless, it is well-known- that the courts are distinctly anxious -about the amount of royal inbreeding which has been taking I place within the last hundred years. Either there is nothing in the theory that the repeated marriage of cousins leads to physical and mental degeneracy, or else the future of the leading royal lines is a disquieting one. There is, however, no alternative but to continue to mix the blood of the reigning houses. English sentiment sometimes -goes so far as to ask why the King of England does not choose his bride from on© of the old aristocratic families. But obviously this is impossible. It is one thing for an English princess to receive permission to marry a Scotch or English peer, and quite another that the King should elevate and glorify one of the leading families by bringing it into close blood relationship with the throne. The spirit of England to-day is to reduce rather than to enlarge the influence and powers of the aristocracy, and among the first houses of England themselves the proposal is probably distasteful, because of the inevitable lack of agree-, ment as to which house should be honored by having one of its daughters raised to the Queen of England and the first woman in the world.