乔治小王子成威廉夫妇出访焦点

Prince George will be in the spotlight as he heads to Australia and New Zealand with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. What can they expect on their first engagements as a family of three?

He's not even nine months old yet, but he's already making a big impact.

George Alexander Louis is about to embark on his first official foreign tour - with his mother and father too, of course.

And it can reasonably be said that a good many people in New Zealand and Australia appear to be getting rather excited about the three-week trip, which starts in Wellington on Monday and ends in Canberra on 25 April.

The normally rumbustious, hard-edged Kiwi/Aussie attitude to visiting Poms seems to have been suspended for William, Catherine and George.

Barbs about alleged sporting deficiencies in the "old country" have been replaced by baby talk - about teething (is he?), crawling (can he?) and walking (might he, on this trip?).

In part, the Aussie/Kiwi soppiness (words which one wouldn't normally expect to find together) might be explained as being a perfectly normal reaction to a baby, the presence of whom is a pretty universal antidote to cynicism.

But there appears to be evidence of something else here.

Are we, perhaps, witnessing the emergence of a renewed enthusiasm for the long-term future of the monarchy in New Zealand and Australia?

Not so many years ago, real questions were being raised about whether these former British dominions wanted to retain a system whereby people who lived on the other side of the world and who visited infrequently were nonetheless regarded as "their" head of state and "their" royal family.

It was said to be an anachronism from the days of Empire that was no longer appropriate.

The doubts were at their height - in Australia at least - nearly 15 years ago in the constitutional referendum of November 1999 when 45% of those who voted expressed a preference for a republic.

But in the years since, Australia and New Zealand seem to have been swept along (and republican feelings largely swept away) by the impact of an increasingly venerated monarch and the emergence of a glamorous young couple with a baby, around whom all kinds of popular dreams (and, it must be said, countless media schemes to boost reader and viewing figures) have been constructed.

When William, Catherine and baby George disembark, first in Wellington and later in Sydney, they will be welcomed not merely as the "super-celebrities" they undoubtedly are, but as prospective kings and as a future queen consort of New Zealand and Australia.

Large crowds are expected to greet them at each of their public engagements. The authorities have already been producing maps to indicate where spectators can find the best vantage points.

In the lead-up to the visit those spectators are likely to have been reminded of William's first visit to Australia, when he was brought by his proud parents back in 1983 at roughly the same age as George is now.

They will have seen stories about how George has grown as well as speculation about how he'll behave at the two engagements to which he's expected to be taken by his parents (one in each country) and how the whole trip has been designed with him very much in mind.

Unlike the programme for their visit to Canada in the summer of 2011, when the newly married William and Catherine were prepared to attend functions from morning until night, this time the programme stops on most days in the late afternoon so that the couple can get back to George, presumably to read him a story and put him to bed.

Consequently evening engagements for the couple are being kept to a minimum.

Does any of it have any significance? Well, yes I suggest it does, for the monarchy that is.

Visits by the royals to New Zealand and Australia are important for the simple reason that these countries - for all their 21st Century vigour and independence - still come within the ambit of the monarchy which is headquartered at Buckingham Palace in London.

The reception that William, his wife and son receive over the next three weeks will say something about the vitality of the British crown and its relevance in 2017.

Clearly not everyone who turns out to cheer William, Catherine and George will necessarily subscribe to the view that, 50 years or so from now, when George might be expected to succeed to the throne of the United Kingdom, that he should also become king of Australia and king of New Zealand.

But as ambassadors for the system of hereditary, constitutional monarchy, this trio exert a powerful force.

A great-grandmother in London can be expected to be watching events carefully and - one might assume - to be pleased at what she sees.

乔治王子随同剑桥公爵夫妇出游澳大利亚和新西兰成为万众瞩目的焦点。这一家三口在其第一次全家旅行期间有何期待呢？

虽然乔治王子还未满九个月，却已产生了重大的影响。

乔治·亚历山大·路易斯即将开始他第一次官方的国外之旅，当然少不了他的父母。

我们可以说新西兰和澳大利亚许多民众对王室一家三周的旅行感到非常兴奋，这种说法也是合理的。这次旅行从4月7日的惠灵顿之游开始到25日堪培拉之游结束。

通常吵吵嚷嚷的新西兰人和澳大利亚人对即将来访的英国佬持有犀利无比的态度，这次似乎因威廉、凯瑟琳和乔治而变得矜持了。

关于所谓“老国家”缺乏运动的冷嘲热讽已由牙牙学语代替——牙齿（长了吗？）、爬着走（他会吗？）、走路（这次旅行中，可能吗？）。

某种程度上，澳大利亚人及新西兰人的多情（通常人们不会看到这几个词同时使用的情况）也许可以解释为大众对婴儿再正常不过的反应——在世界各地，只要婴儿一出面，冷嘲热讽全失效。

但似乎还有其他原因来证明为何澳大利亚人和新西兰人态度大转变。

也许，我们正见证人们对新西兰和澳大利亚未来长期的君主政体热情复燃？

还在几年前，有人提出这样一个现实的问题：曾经是英国自治领地的新西兰和澳大利亚是否想维持君主体制，借此住在另一个半球、不常来访的英国人仍被人当做“新西兰人和澳大利亚人”的元首和“新西兰人和澳大利亚人”的皇室家族。

有人说君主体制是大英帝国时期留下来的残余，在现在不再合适了。

就在近15年前，即1999年11月澳大利亚举行的宪法公投显示45%的投票人偏爱共和政体，使得这一疑问达到顶峰。

不过最近日渐受人尊敬的女王和年轻迷人的夫妇及其婴儿，似乎吸引了澳大利亚和新西兰（人们共和政体的感情也在很大程度上一扫而空）。围绕着这个皇室一家三口，生出了各种各样的大众梦（必须说出来的话，是无数媒体想要增加读者数量和阅览数据的阴谋）。

威廉、凯瑟琳和婴儿乔治启程，先到惠灵顿，再去悉尼，他们不仅会作为“超级名流”受到热烈的欢迎，毫无疑问他们就是“超级名流”，还会作为新西兰和澳大利亚未来的国王和王后受到人们的喜爱。

预计会有一大群人在他们出入公共场合时迎接他们。官方已经绘制了观众能找到最佳观看位置的地图。

这次出游的前奏是观众可能会想起威廉第一次到访澳大利亚的情形。1983年他那自豪的父母带着他来到澳大利亚，当时他和乔治差不多大。

大家会看到乔治长多大了，会猜测乔治在两次公众露面中会不会听话。他将由父母带着在新西兰和澳大利亚分别露一次面。大家都很关心有乔治王子随行，这次旅行的整个安排会是怎样。

不像他们2011年夏季出访加拿大一样，当时新婚的威廉和凯瑟琳准备好从早到晚参加各种活动，这次大多数时候的行程安排在下午晚些时候就结束了，这样剑桥公爵夫妇能回到乔治身边，人们猜测他们会给他读睡前故事，哄他入睡。

结果剑桥公爵夫妇晚上的活动少之又少。

会不会有何重大意义呢？那个，会，我猜想会，对君主体制有着重大意义。

皇室家庭出访新西兰和澳大利亚意义重大，原因很简单，那就是这些国家——尽管充满了21世纪的活力和独立——仍属于君主体制的范围内，这一体制的总部位于伦敦的白金汉宫。

接下来三周威廉和他的妻儿受到的接待将说明英国王冠的活力及其与2017的关联。

显然那些为威廉、凯瑟琳和乔治欢呼的人群中，并非每个人都赞同这样一种图景，即距今约50年后，乔治也许要继承英国王位时，他还应该是澳大利亚和新西兰的国王。

不过作为这一世袭君主立宪制度的形象大使，这一家三口会产生重大的影响。

在伦敦，一位曾祖母（英国女王）预计会审慎地看着这次出访——大家可以假定——看到这一切，她会很开心。