BRIDE FOR THE PRINCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 December 1920, Page 6

BRIDE FOR THE PRINCE.

WHO WILL HE MARRY! The following is a reprint of the first leading article in a recent issue of the Loncion Times:—Tile keenest public interest centres round the Prince of Wales; and though there is the strongest desire to respect his privacy, the public watch him with almost parental anxiety. Everywhere fervent wisiies for his health and prosperity are the staple uT conversation. It would be strange if the topic of his marriage were not very often on the lips and near to tiie hearts of his countrymen and countrywomen. He is 2li, and the marriage of. the Prince of Walw is inevitably a matter of deep public concern. YVe desire to speak of it with proper reticence, expressing, within these bounds, what we believe to be the real anxiety of the, country that he should make a wise choice. The war, in this as in most other tilings, has, we believe, wrought a great change in public opinion, which —here and elsewhere in the Knipive—would, we are convinced, be strongly averse from the thought that there should be any compulsion upon the Prince of Wales to make a marriage of policy. For him, within the comparatively narrow limits that his position must impose upon him, the Hritish peoples woyild wish a marriage of true happiness; and this, it is our way to believe, means a marriage of inclination. It follows naturally that the hope for him is thai his wife may be one of his own race; for, ,thougli there have been fortunate exceptions, it is certainly true that marriages of policy with princesses of foreign birth have not always had the primary condition for happiness. Further than to give expression to ,this national wish for the Prince we shall not go, adding only that we doubt whether there is now the need that thefe may have been before the war to limit the choice of the Prince to the circle of the Blood Royal.