The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The House of Commons was last night
engaged in the agreeable, but responsible duty of
providing an establishment for the Prince and
Princess of Wales. The title of Prince of Wales
and the condition of the heir apparent are so fami-
liar to all Englishmen that they will be apt to
think there exist easy rules and principles for a
pecuniary measure of that high position. It so
happens, however, that there cannot be said to be
a single case in the long lists of heirs apparent and
presumptive that affords any assistance on the pre-
sent occasion. We must go far back, and still fur-
ther backward, again and again, end so on till we
come to the very founder of the series, befure we
can even fancy we found a parallel to the august
pair now assuming their high state under such pro-
pitious auspices. The settlement upon the last
Prince of Wales was so anomalous, so disgraceful,
so unhappy alike in its causes and consequences,
that it can have no practical bearing on the present
case. We are thrown almost entirely on our own
measure of this high " rank and dignity," taking
all circumstances into account. The Prince of Wales
we expect to outshine every subject; we wish him
to show betimes the Royal qualities of private kind-
ness, public benevolence, and open-handed genero-
sity ; he is to patronise art; he is to live as a great
country gentleman ; he may have tastes of his own ;
he is to live among magnates whose income is
written in hundreds of thousands. But, on the other
hand, his very position obtains for him more consi-
deration than enormous estates or sums of ready
money will obtain for the private man. Wealth is
abundant here, and it is therefore cheap. In vain
are the richest men among us striving by mere force
of money to win that quiet homage and regard
which is rendered unsought to ancient lineage,
gentle manners, and an unsullied name. The squire
and the priest have no need to squander and shine
if they choose to be content with their useful
office and modest rank. But to do even this re-
quires personal gifts which are not conspicuous in
the majority of men. So also a Prince and an
heir to the Throne may, with fitting graces,
cheaply win his way to the hearts of all around
him. So far as he may, we need not encumber his
rank with vulgar magnificence and display; so far
as ha may require these appliances, and must live
up to his high position, we must see that he does not
want for anything that is ha our power to give.
The proposed settlement is all the less in amount
because the revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall
are taken into consideration. They are said to now
yield £60,000 a year. For that we are in a great
i measure indebted to the careful management of the
late Prince Consort. It might have been prudent
to consider whether so vast a property should be
left for the future to the mere chance of a Prince
combining high principle with good business habits;
but, as the grant of £40,000 a year, with which this
income is to be supplemented, if the whole British
people were to be canvassed, and it could be ex-
plained to them how much each would have to con-
tribute to it, we do not doubt that they would give
their Prince at least as much as was unanimously
voted last night. How is this? we may ask. How
is it that a generation which has sc ,rcely yet passed
away was never so virtuously employed as in cut-
ting down salaries and incomes and places, and now
we might safely appeal to the British people for an
establisi ment worthy of a Prince of Wales ? Times
are i, deed changed. But in those days Royalty, in
ilddition to its own deserts—were they good or
were they ill—came in for a large share of the
odium accumulated by an immense mass of waste
and corruption. Innumerable sinecures, and places
paid
out of all measure to their utility or their
duties, damaged not only all our institutions,
hbaudt
The the monarchy itself, in the eyes of menTh
who
entire
to work hard for their daily bread.
~ocial fabric seemed little else than a conspiracy
for taking a base advantage of the generosity of
the loyal, the faith of the pious, the submission of
the weak, and the obedience of the good.
Forty
years ago all the instincts which in their bearing
on a man's private life we call by the
this n ame of
i
" conscience" taught that everything n land,
from the Throne and the Altar to the poorhouse and
the cottage, cried aloud to be cleansed fars abuse,scaomrcea
malversation, and oppression. T
spot in the whole system on which a man might
put his finger and safely call it clean. No marvel
if it became the humour of the day to carp and
cavil, to stint and deny, to doubt and, if possible, to
destroy. That spirit long survived the occasion,
for even when Reform had proceeded to its utmost
limits, still the fear of over giving and over trusting
closed the fist alike of the peer and the operative.
We have outlived that fit, and can be reasonably
generous. The nation will not sit down to dole out
an allowance to the Prince and Princess of Wales
as if it wished to give nothing, but was obliged to
give something, but rather as if glad of a good
occasion to be large-hearted, loyal, and confiding.
What Parliament had to do was to give reasonable
measure and form to this loyal sentiment. The
aggregate income of the Prince of Wales is to be
£100,000; and when we take into account the ac-
curate appreciation usually displayed by the British
public of the means of those who are " possessed of
aught to give," we cannot regard it as by any
means excessive.
HERALD.—The reiterated cheers which from both
sides of the house greeted Lord Palmerston's pro-
posal for the maintenance of the establishment of
the Prince of Wales will find an echo in the heart
of the nation. Upon a question of this kind all
Englishmen are united; and we sincerely congratu-
late the Premier who proposed, and the Prince who
accepted, the modest appropriation agreed to last
night. Lord Palmerston's speech was admirably to
the purpose. There are few amongst us but appre-
ciate the blessings of the constitutional rule under
which we live ; there are still fewer who do not find
in the life of our Sovereign, and the beneficent in-
fluence it dispenses, a sourceo of
will,
heartfelt af t i
possible,sfact satisfaction.
The statement made last night
strengthen the affection of the country towards the
Throne—not because the grant recommended is
small, but because its comparative smallness proves
how prudent and how considerate are the views of
royalty. We venture to say that the proposal of Lord
Palmerston will take the public by surprise. The
general feeling will be that well expressed by Mr.
Disraeli," No one can say it is excessive ; we hope
it will be adequate." But nobody will read Lord
Palmerston's words without, a pang of bitter regret
that he to whose prudent administration we are so
much indebted for the flourishing condition of the
revenue of the Prince of Wales has not lived to
see his foresight acknowledged by a grateful people.
In former years, the Premier tells us, it was the cus-
tom to add the accumulating revenue of the Duchy
of Cornwall during the minority of the Prince of
Wales to the income of the Sovereign. Her Ma-
jesty the Queen was the first to depart from this
practice. Under the prudent management of the
from the Duchy of
late Prince Consort the revenue
Cornwall was allowed to accumulate, until at this
day the income derivable therefrom has reached
the sum of £60,000 per annum; and this sum, the
savings of a wise economy, comprises the larger
moiety of the income of the Prince of Wales. A
grant of £40,000 a year to the Prince and Princess
of Wales from the Consolidated Fund, and of
£lO,OOO a year for the separate use of the Princess
Alexandra, as agreed to by the treaty between her
Majesty and the King of Denmark, makes up the
income the nation offers to the heir of the throne.
In point of fact, £50,000 is the moderate portion
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