A Problem Of State Visits

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31085, 14 June 1966, Page 17

A Problem Of State Visits

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P A.) LONDON, June 13. The Queen is running out of countries where she can make a State visit and Foreign Office officials are concerned, says the “Sunday Times.” In 14 years she had officially visited 52 countries—--22 of them on full State visits—far more than any of her predecessors. But because of a tradition that says the Monarch cannot go on a State visit to a country more than once, there are mow very few countries left.

The Government and the Foreign Office consider it a serious problem and they are currently, considering where the next State visit will be to. So far they have not come to any decision, says the newspaper’s diarist. The Queen has already been to Norway, Sweden, Portugal, France, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Germany, and Belgium—and there are few places left in Europe. A visit to Austria is on the cards, says the “Sunday Times,” but it will not be for a while because their President has just been to Britain. "It has been the custom for the Monarch to make only one

State visit to any country,” says a Buckingham Palace spokesman, “but it is now not impossible that the custom will be broken." The custom applies only to State visits —the term for a foreign visit. The Queen goes on a "tour” of the Commonwealth and this can be repeated. She has been to Canada four times and Australia and New Zealand twice. A big omission among State visits is the United States, but, the newspaper says, although she has made two visits while in Canada, she has apparently never been invited to the United States.