Another Prince
HE arrival of the Royal baby brought the inevitable bursts of extfavagance and the expected flow of sentimental nonsense. If that had not happened there might have been grounds for uneasiness. We are a sentimental race and we were most of us babies once ourselves. But there was relatively little slop. The Party leaders certainly did themselves well as Party leaders always must and one or two especially exuberant reporters went a little further than. even the politicians. But that is all there was to make the sensible smile and the sensitive squirm. If it was "a great day for the British," as Mr. Holland so ardently declared, the British came through with a minimum of nonsense in all the circumstances and usually on the safe side of intoxication. Most of us realised that it was an important event as well as a happy one. As long as our constitution stands, the smooth functioning of the Crown means the easing of strains and stresses throughout our whole political system. When successors fail as they have more than once in our history, it is‘not only the reigning family who suffer anxiety, but all the responsible sections of the nation. Nor must ~we suppose that time has ended all that. It has ended some anxieties, the cruder, crosser; more .violent fears with which’ our nation once faced every break in the ee But if we think the problem of the succession no "longer exists that is because we have not. t "compelled to think about it,wi not very serious exception,’ for more than a hundred years. If excuses were necessary that would be a sufficient ‘justification for the most earnest prayers and the most grateful sighs. But justifying our happiness is not necessary. What is necessary is that we should carry it well, greet our princes standing up and not grovelling at their feet. We owe it to them as well as to ourselves that the loyalty we offer them should be as clear-headed as the loyalty we expect from them, and as free.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 492, 26 November 1948, Page 5
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344Another Prince New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 492, 26 November 1948, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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