PRINCES AND LOROS

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 83, 16 April 1901, Page 3

PRINCES AND LOROS

(Lyttelton Times.) Loyalty is lilto n beautiful flower, and although some people declare that they like it best in the wild stato, there is no doubt that with care and attention it can be developed into a really elegant show plant. As the loyalty 'of the colonies is to bo on exhibition for a brief space in the near future our friends are busily helping us to make a show bloom of it. Out here the soil is being loosened round - its roots, and a canvas shield is being erected round it to keep out the cold wind. The plant is not really delicate, seeing that it lias been bruised and buffeted for half a century or more, and we are not sure that it will look any healthier or moro beautiful for all the coddling. However, the process has begun, and it is just as well to carry it through. Choice foods aro being sent out from the Old Country in the shape of a boatload of knighthoods and honors, which an unkind Australian critic suggested were being carried in the Ophir in lieu of cargo or ballast, and from time to time we arc supplied with quite the daintiest preparations—we hardly like to call them manures—m order to help along the growth of our sentimental plant.

The subject is an extremely. delicate one. The visit of the Duke and Duchess of York is a good thing hr itself, but some well -meaning friends of the colony are doing their best to make it ridiculous. Wc might havo been spared, for instance, the touching cablegram recording the parting words of the King to his illustrious son. The knighthoods, wo suppose, are unavoidable evils. But the latest suggestion of a superlatively loyal Press is likely to give the Royal Family unending trouble. We do not know what “ representative quarters ” were responsible for the proposal that the Duke should bo created Rrinec of Australia, but the idea might very well have boon left to die a natural death. The new suggestion of the Standard that the Duke’s sons should be created Prince of Canada and Prince of Australia respectively, fills us with jealousy. If age is to be the standard, Newfoundland’s claim to the oldest son'is prior to that of Canada, and we gather 1 from a story told by Mr T. R. O’Connor l in “M.A.P." that Prince Edward, though : his years are few, lias already an intimate

and exact acquaintance with the rules of precedence. But supposing Canada and Australia arc provided with Princes, what is New Zealaud to do ? She will hardly bo content with a danghtei - , and the Duke as yet has only two sous. New Zealand obviously will have to wait. But then there are South Africa, Newfoundland and Jamaica and Fiji, not to'mention the other innumerable dependencies of the Empire. Arc all these to bo left desolate ?

Jealousy is an awful thing to bring into a happy family. Possibly if Ireland had had a Prince of the blood as overlord five centuries of trouble wnnU' ueen avoid . ed. Even Wales, we learn, is distressed because the, new Prince is not yet- created. In truth, tho visit of a Royal Duke is sufficient honor for one year. Our loyalty, ns we said, will be on show, and we ax-e afraid that its bastard relatives null not be altogether absent. • The sentiment of Haynes Bayly’s lines is not qxxite dead : A clod, a piece.of orange peel, The end of a cigar When trod on by a princely heel, How beautiful they aro ! A cigar stump, guaranteed to have been smoked by the Kaiser, was sold for twentyfive dollars the other day in New York. Coker’s Hotel will bo too beautiful to live in when the Dxxke is gone 1