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Between now and the date of the Crown Princess' marriage, probably in December, Juliana, 27, and Benno, 25, will busy themselves completing an economic study of The Netherlands on which they have been working in recent months. In the best sense of the term, Prince Bernhard is a first generation "mama's boy" and Crown Princess Juliana is a second generation "mama's girl," her mother Queen Wilhelmina having been reared and dominated by the late autocratic Queen Emma of The Netherlands (TIME, Aug. 6, 1928). Normal court usage would have been for the Crown Princess to propose to Benno, but Dutch courtiers stated last week that he proposed to Juliana in Switzerland.
Ideally suited to rule The Netherlands, Juliana was considered last week to be wisely marrying for love a prince who has not enough position or prestige to arouse in Dutch breasts the animosity risked by a Prince Consort from a foreign land who must always be more or less suspect of trying to influence his wife and Queen. For undertaking cheerfully this thankless role Prince Benno, by act of the Dutch Parliament, is expected to be invested on his marriage with the rank of Prince of The Netherlands and allotted the modest civil list as Prince Consort of 200,000 florins ($136,000) per year. Britain's Queen Victoria, who proposed to her Albert, secured for him as Prince Consort, after much wrangling in the House of Commons, a civil list of $150,000.
Generally in The Netherlands last week the Crown Princess' choice came as a complete surprise almost completely popular. Only Dutch Socialist papers such as Het Volk grumbled that Benno is a German and Germany is now the spearhead of anti-Socialist forces. However, likeable Benno served most of his apprenticeship to the German Dye Trust in its Paris office, speaks French even better than he speaks Dutch, and would be able from experience to show buxom Juliana a good time in Paris swank spots.