PRINCESS MARGARET'S DECISION: RIGHT OR WRONG?

THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN:

HER decision, which has plainly been come to after subtle pressure, will be regarded by great masses of people as unnecessary and perhaps a great waste. In the long run it will not redound to the credit or influence of those who have been most persistent in denying the Princess the same liberty that is enjoyed by the rest of her fellow-citizens. Even the least cynical among us find it hard to see why an innocent party to a divorce [i.e., Sir Anthony Eden] can become the man who appoints archbishops and bishops, while the Princess, who merely exercises her social graces and has a very remote chance of succeeding to the throne, should be denied by ecclesiastical prescription the right to marry an innocent party to a divorce. That odd piece of inconsistency may be typically English, but it has more than a smack of English hypocrisy about it.

Britain's left-wing NEW STATESMAN AND NATION:

SUBMERGED under the "human interest" of the Princess Margaret story, commentators have been slow to scrutinise her statement of renunciation.

It raises sharp constitutional issues. The Princess declared that she has been "aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage." This seems to imply that a civil marriage could have been possible only if the succession were renounced. But who has made her "aware" of any such thing? Is it even true? The right of succession is peculiarly a matter for Parliament. She has been made "aware" of a probably untrue and certainly highly controversial doctrine.

Who told her that her duty as a Princess demanded that she should uphold the Archbishop of Canterbury's view? She consulted him; he has made no secret of his dogma. But surely no one except our Parliament and the Governments of other Commonwealth countries has any right to make any statement involving such a choice. The question of succession is not a matter for the royal prerogative (or for the Archbishop) but for the British and the other Common wealth Premiers.

If Sir Anthony [Eden] had been consulted (as he should have been the moment the question of succession arose) he would have, been bound to give Princess Margaret the opposite advice. The Premier's own marriage, according to the Archbishop's doctrine, is not a true marriage. No wonder that the upshot of the whole affair in Parliament and the country is a demand for Disestablishment.

The Vatican Daily, OSSERVATORE RO MANO:

THE echoes and rumblings of the passing storm continue after the noble message of Princess Margaret. She was subjected to reportorial treatment usually given those movie stars who seek publicity in anything—even of the most dubious nature. The storm swept away a large part of the press, along with weakly resisting public opinion, into a bankruptcy without parallel in recent years.