PRINCE OF WALES’ TOUR.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 April 1920, Page 3

PRINCE OF WALES’ TOUR.

(By Electric Telegraph—Copyright./

THE PRINCE’S RECEPTION

SAN FRANCISCO, April 8.

The scene at. the Stadium presented elements both grandiose and bezarre. The Stadium is an immense open air theatre surrounded by tail pillars and seated in tiers, which contained many track runs between the rising tiers of seats and the central enclosure. The Prince with the Governor and Mayor of San Diego, followed by a procession of cars ,drove round the track which was I lined with American soldiers and sailors, who presented arms. A large pavilion at the end was profusely decked with flags. Equipped with an electric me- ( gaphone, the conditions were sufficient to daunt the most experienced speaker. . Tho speaker poured forth a perfect Niagara of elocution through automatic ijiegapliones which distributed the speech to the furtherest corners.

When the Prince rose, squadrons of aeroplanes were looming overheard and the cinema operators concentrating on him at close quarters, but he never flinched from the ordeal and talked carefully in chosen phrases of warm appreciation into the megaphones, which sent the words reverbrating to all sides of the stadium. In the evening the Prince attended a. dinner given by the Mayor and Mrs Wild at Coronado Hotel. Five hundred quests were presented afterwards at a brilliant bah.

THE PRINCE’S DRESS. If the Prince dresses when in New Zealand on the same plan as .hat which he made liis rule in Canada, no will wear in seaboard towns the uniform of a captain of the Navy, and in largo inland towns that of a colonel of 'Welsh Guards. .When presumably the civilians whose duties bring them into contact with him on ceremonial occasions prefer to wear tall hats and morning dress, he will do the same, though he has said, “the people can wear what they like.” His Royal Highness himself has all a boy’s horror of

‘•'toppers',” and in Canada, in all the smaller places, he appeared in a suit of grey mufti, and liked, for their own sakes, to see other people do the same. Probably, also, he would like the speeches lie will be called upon to make and listen to to be as few and as .short as possible—out of consideration for the feelings of others as well as his own.

Little talk and lots of exercise would be a programme that would be likely to fit in with his secret wishes better than any other. He is n delightful boy, without an atom of “side”. He told the members of the Press Club in Washington that one of the things that pleased him in coming to the States was to find “that you are nearly as democratic as we are.” He might well have said “as I am.” For with all his sense of his great position and responsibilities as heir to the throne of the 'Commonwealth of British nations, he is democratic to the core.

One of the first things he did on arriving in Canada was to convert as many as possible of the garden parties arranged in his honour into public receptions, to which anyone who chose to walk in from the street, dqwn to little boys in ragged clothing, were cordially invited. He wanted to meet face to face as many as he could of the people over whom he will some day be called upon to reign and not only the gentlemen in top hats. And as his right hand quickly bore witness, he aia,