Wong Kiss

In London a scene in a film in which "a white man" kissed Miss Anna May Wong was ordered cut by British film censors "on moral grounds" * (TIME, Dec. 2).

In Hungary and generally on the Continent, censorship is for political, not moral, daring. When the Wong film was submitted to the Royal Hungarian Censor last week, he was scandalized to observe that the white man who, kissed the yellow girl was a Grand Duke. He promptly suppressed the film on the ground of its ''anti-monarchical tendencies."

Next to Japan, Hungary is the most monarchial nation, all the more so because it has no monarch. As U. S. citizens yearn for liquids the Constitution forbids, so Hungarians, because the Allies will not permit the restoration of the Habsburgs, passionately want a king.

All over the U. S. are offices proudly signboarded "The Royal Hungarian Consulate." In Budapest the No. 1 man is Admiral Nicholas Horthy de Nagybanya, commonly called abroad "The Regent," but in Hungary officially "His Serene Highness the Governor of the Kingdom" --the only 100% kingdom without a King.

In Budapest policemen snap to salute as the gleaming motor cars of the immensely rich, deposed Habsburg Archdukes pass. The U. S. Minister and the rest of the diplomatic corps periodically attend archducal levees--mere playacting, but taken in aristocratic earnest.

Claimants to the vacant throne include several archdukes, but the sole legitimate heir is "Little Otto," eldest son of the late, deposed Karl, Austrian Emperor, King of Hungary.

* But last week Dr. Marie Carmichael Stopes, foremost British champion of birth restriction, won her long battle with the Lord Chamberlain, wrung from him a license for her cinema tract Our Ostriches.

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