THE PRINCE AND MARRIAGE.

Shannon News, 23 June 1925, Page 3

THE PRINCE AND MARRIAGE.

‘ (By G. Ward Price, in the Sydney “Sun.”)

WHY IT HAS BEEN DELAYED.

When the Prince of Wales returns to England in the course of a few months it will bo to settle down a* home in a more permanent way than the duties of his position have hitherto allowed. For, ever since he rcache 1 .manhood, the strong sense of public service, which is the most striking < haractristice of our British Royal Family, has imposed upon the Prince of Wales an exceptionally restless and unsettled mode of life. First of all the war took him abroad on active service, and since that ended the desire, both of his father and himself, has kept the Prince at the pro tracted task of becoming personally acquainted with all parts of our farflung Empire. But now the last stage of this long apprenticeship to his life’s work is being reached. When his tour is over, there is good reason to hope and laelieve that the Prince of Wales will be able to turn his attention to another matter, in whicli large numbers of his futuie subjects feel the keenest interest—that of choosing a wife. Will Not Be Hurried.

It is a direct result of the Prince's high personal popularity with the nation that the public wish to sec him make a happy marriage is so strong and widespread. His character and bearing have a eharrn which has created in millions of Biitish men and women who have never so much as set eyes upon him in he flesh the fee-ling of a personal bond uniting him and and them. Matters which are entirely private in the case of humbler people become, in the case of Royalty, affair? of r)a« tional interest. This eagerness for his t'uture wedded welfare has aroused among some sections of the British nubiic a certain impatience. Speculation and gossip follow natur.illy. Many explanations, most of them grotesquely ill-informed, have been put about for the fact that the' Prince of Wales in the early thirties still remains a. bachelor. Yet the simplest of them all is nearest to the truth. It is that the Prince has never yet had occasion to think .ibout marrying. In a matter so important for himself and the nation, he quite rightly does not to be hurried. Like many other busy and efficient men, he believes in concentrating on one thing at a time. If there were a Princess of Wales,

the Dominions would naturally be most anxious that she would accompany the Prince on his visits. But with such programmes as that prepared for his tour in South Africa — where he spends three months in a train, with hardly a break of more than three or four days—it would be impossible for a woman to share in the really serious fatigue and strain of his journeys. Were the Prince a married man he could not hope 'to see the Empire so thoroughly as he now sees it in his travels, and he does not intend to allow marriage to stand in the wxiy of that.

It can be stated with confidence that the King and Queen agree with their son's attitude toAvards this question of his marriage. The days have gone past when the marriage of the Heir to the Throne was a matter to be settled in his youth by the Monarch and his political advisers with small regard to the personal preference of the young man whose domestic future was thus taken out of his own hands. The Prince of Wales will have a free choice in selecting his bri'de. Those who know him best are very positive that he wll be guided solely, as he has a right to be, by his personal affections. Tt is possible,, of course, that he may take as wife the daughter of some foreign royal house. There is no pressure, even of public opinion, upon him to do so. Leisured Days at Hand. On the contrary, the people of Britain want nothing so much as a real lovo match for their "Prince Charming." One may hazard the guess that no such match is yet in sight. But if the Prince, in the eyes of impatient people, has appeared to tarry unduly, he has at least gained the necessary expeiience of life and affairs to choose tho more wisely when the time com.es. The idea that royalty must intermarry only with royalty is a German one. unknown in this country until it was imported by our Hanoverian Kings, two centuries ago. It tended to the formation of a royal international caste, whose tics, or feuds, of cousinship sometimes exercised occult and disastrous iniluence upon the political relations of thencountries.

But, though suitable foreign princesses have lately become rarer, charming British girls, with birth, breeding, and beauty that fit them well to share some day the throne of this country, are plentiful enough. The graceful and efficient way in which the Duchess of York has taken up the new role to which her marriage called her has shown how well new British Princesses can be supplied at home.

Much of the youth of the Prince of Wales has now been given to serving his country, both as its First Ambassador, and—what is even more valuable —as its First Commercial Traveller. A lull in these arduous activities is now approaching. If one of the fruits of the more leisured days that await him were to be his choice of a British bride, it is certain that the delight in this country would be more universal than at any national event for a generation past.