12 MARCH 1932, Page 4

A Royal Candidate 1 A lively interest will be imported

into the German Presidential Election if the late Kaiser's son, Prince Oscar, is nominated as candidate on the second ballot. The first ballot takes place on Sunday, and it is hardly to be expected that President Hindenburg will secure a clear

majority of all votes east.•. Failing that he must stand again, the, following Sunday, when. the candidate who secures the highest vote will bc, elected. If Prince Oscar is in fact. nominated by the Hugenberg Party; who are Monarchists, an attempt will be-•made to win him the support of the Hitlerites, but, as their name of National Socialists indicates, Herr Hitler's followers have no love of monarchy and small desire to see a Hohenzollern in power. In other quarters Prince Oscar's, ancestry, will be anything but an asset. . Dr. Bruning is campaigning vigorously for the President, and the present prospects are that the Field-Marshal will head- the poll on Sunday, but with insufficient votes for immediate election, and a week later find himself .chosen President for another seven years. Economic and political conditions .ia Germany arc such that the transfer of the. Presidential. authority to some less stable and less experienced per- sonality might involve the whole State in. disaster.

Consciousness of that is likely to be the deciding factor:-