NATURALISATION

Hokitika Guardian, 20 July 1920, Page 3

NATURALISATION

(New Zealand “Times.”)

Mr H. K. Holland, during tile debate J on the bill dealing with certain aliens, j referred to the Prince of Wales almost j as if the Heir to the Throne were a j naturalised German. He said no word against the Prince, of course, and that | ho intended po disparagement his word is quite sufficient proof. That the Royal Family has German blood in its veins is a. historic truth. But the fact does not justify any sneer, however cheap, j Does anyone c-ver throw any doubt on j the King’s British thoroughness?' On \ that of Edward VII. On that of , Queen Victoria ! J Without doubting, . does anyone think of referring to their Gorman origin? 1 Of what uso is it, , then to refer to the German origin of t!ie Prince of Wales, in a debate about the treatment of German aliens deiiatur. alised or otherwise. There is not even the case of historical accuracy. The his- ( toric fact is that the Royal Family of ( Great Britain is not German. It is Tu- j dor first and Stuart next. The title ol , James I.—James VI. of Scotland—to the English throne, derived through his mother” Mary Queen of Scots, was a Tudor title. The daughter of King ,filmes 1, married to the Elector-King ot Bohemia, was the grandmother of George 1., Elector of Hanover, and transmitted to him tho reversion of the Tudor right to the English Throne, in case of the failure of male heirs in the Stuart branch. The Parliament of England deprived the male heirs of their title and passed tho right of succession to the throne on to the heirs of Elizabeth, daughter of Jamse 1., and thus George I. (Elector of Hanover) became King of England. He did so by a title older than the first mixture of German Wood with Wood of the Royal Family of England. The origin of the title is not German at all, but that mixture of Welsh and English (Tudor and Plantaganet), known as Tudor. As we have said, the strain of German Wood is pronounced in this family. But it does not justify a reference to it without acknowledgement of its subsidiary character. After all, the predominant Wood is Plantaganet, Tudor and Stuart; and on the evidence of the present reign and its two predecessors, it is plain that the leaning of the German blood that came after these has passed away. Tho-point-ed mention of it in a dehate on German aliens is a cheap sneer, ostentatiously ignoring the fundamental truth.