Palace and People

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 422, 25 July 1947, Page 5

Palace and People

dangers that the announcement of the Royal engagement reached us too late for immediate comment. There are many things we can’t say now that it would have been appropriate to say a week earlier; but it is never appropriate to flatter or fawn. The message from the King himself ‘was simple, restrained, and brief. So wete the replies from our Governor-General and our Prime Minister. But the matter was not allowed to rest there. A flood of extravagant nonsense suddenly began to flow, and it has not quite stopped yet. One _ enthusiastic rhapsodist made the Princess a great linguist, a distinguished musician, and a dazzling horsewoman. Another thought to praise her fiancé by assuring us that he had always avoided his own country and could not even speak its language. It would be interesting to know what cause such sycophants think they: are serving. If the Princess had become so many things in her brief life, the simple and sensible girl whom sensible people find so attractive would be a myth, and all the work of her public relations staff would have been wasted, fatuous, and false. But the less the toadies know the louder they lift their voices. What in fact do any of us know about these two young people that would bear examination? Of Lieutenant Mountbatten not much more than his age, his general appearance, and his very creditable war record. Of the Princess a little more certainly, but even in her case not nearly enough to justify us in making her already a figure in history. It is on the contrary her chief virtue and chief charm that she is not a figure yet, and does not wish to be, but the fact that destiny may make her a figure some day is a very strong reason why: she should be allowed to enjoy. her youth and her simplicity while she still has them, and _ her, romance too before the cares of State cast their shadow on her path. = perhaps saved us from some