EDWARD, HUMANITARIAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 4, 26 March 1927, Page 18 (Supplement)

EDWARD, HUMANITARIAN

PRINCE GOES SLUMMING HIS INTEREST IN THE POOR Edward, Prince of Wales, does not live entirely for sport. He spends his spare evenings by visiting the tenements of workers in the East End and South of London. The visits to slum districts are made quite spontaneously. In this he is following the example of his grandfather, King Edward, who took a very practical interest in the housing problems of London. Almost every week we read in the morning paper that the Prince of Wales has spent a night visiting some squalid and overcrowded corner of London, says a representative of the “Daily Chronicle.” Those who know the Prince’s motives in going on what are broadly termed “slumming expeditions,” realise that he has very deep-seated reasons. He goes privately, unannounced, and on the spur of the mo- . ment, and it is his deep distress at the conditions which prevail which impels him to investigate for himself. I asked a distinguished member of his household at St. James’s Palace if the Prince was to continue his visits to the East End, and their exabt purport. “The Prince’s visits,” I was told, “will in all probability continue. They are impromptu visits, arranged at a moment’s notice, on occasions when his Royal Highness has a free evening and is in town. The Prince realises that this problem of housing in the East End of London is a very large problem; is, in fact, not one problem, but many. These visits are all part and parcel of the Prince’s resolve to keep in the closest touch, and by personal experience, with all conditions of life, not only in the East End of London, but throughout the country. The Prince is paying particular attention not only to bad housing, but also to the problems of the poor child and unemployment, and the subsidiary problems which arise from these questions as a whole..” When the Prince goes “slumming,” selection is made deliberately of very undesirable streets and buildings. There is no “stage-management.” The Prince walks where he will and talks to whom he meets. Sometimes his identity is unknown. “His popularity wherever he goes in East London is perfectly phenomenal,” says Mr. Mallon. “He could go into the worst hole and he would be as safe as if he were in Buckingham Palace. I have never seen greater enthusiasm for the Prince than in the East End. He is full of sympathy for those who have to live their lives under very inadequate and crowded conditions. And the people feel that he is kind and is anxious to help them.” We like to think of him as a social reformer, and a very real influence for good, and we like also to recall those words of this Prince of the People, spoken as far back as 1921 at the Mansion House, right in the heart ! of the wealthy City of London: rt is easy to have high ideals when one is not in want, but very hard when one is out of work and hungry, and has been hungry for a long time; and still harder when you are not only hungry yourself, but all those near and dear to you are also hungry.