The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-02-23
BRITISH GROWN REYEN UES,
WHERE THE MONEY ALL COMES
 FROM

" 1 IJtA AHg Lb ON IT -b ILL COh ELs
 That Supports Royalty in All It's
 CTS.
 One of the first duties of England S
 parliament, when it reassembles for
 business a few days hence, will be to
 deal with the question of maintenance
 of the new king and queen in style be-
 fitting the dignity and grandeur of the
 British empire. For the arrangements
 made by Queen Victoria with the House
 of Commons at the time of her access
 sion to the throne, according to the
 terms of which the amount of her civil
 list was fixed at about two million dol
 lars year, was only for the duration of
 her reign, and was terminated with her
 death.
 There is no point in connection with
 the English royal family concerning
 which a greater amount of misconcep-
 tion prevails than this subject of the
 civil list. A widespread belief exists to
 LliG cllGCl ludl lIl6 two IulllIOU uO1ldIS d
 year paid to Queen Victoria throughout
 her reign of more than six decades was
 in the nature of a salary for her ser-
 vices as sovereign, just as fifty thou-
 sand dollars per annum is paid by the
 United States treasury to the president
 of the republic. This impression has
 been industriously spread and strength
 ened by the ultra-radical element in the
 United Kingdom, which is never tired
 of expatiating on the costlness of the
 monarchy, and of holding up the mem-
 bers of the royal family to obloquy and
 contempt as needy pensioners on the
 bounty of the British taxpayer.
 Nothing can be further from the
 truth than these charges. The princes
 and trincesses of the blood are in no
 sense pensioners of the national treas
 ury. Nor is the monarchy burden
 upon the revenues of the United King
 dom. The sovereign possesses by right
 of inheritance an immense amount of
 valuable property, known as crown
 property. This crown property cannot
 be let by the sovereign for any period beyond the length of his reign, just as
 the owner of an entailed country place
 cannot lease 1t or otherwise dispose of 1t for any term beyond that of his own life, save with the legal consent of his immediate heirs. Following the exam pie of her uncle, King William w., Queen Victoria, at the iutset of her reign. made an arrangement with par 1iament and with the treasury whereby in return for her surrender to the state of the major portion of the crown prop e.. l., ofl ,.l,o ceived an undertaking from the nation to furnish her with a civil list of two million dollars year, and to provide adequate allowances for the princes and princesses of the royal house. It was not the queen or her family who had the best of this bargain but the state that is to say, the taxpayers. Owing to the careful management and extraordi- nary development of the crown proper ty, together with the amazing growth in value of building land in the last six ty years, the treasury, during the great CT part of the queens reign, has man. aged to net profits of five hundred thou sand dollars, and during the last quar- ter of century profits of over a million dollars year, from the proceeds of the crown property, after all the expenses of it's management, and civil list of the queen and the allowances of the royal princes and princesses had been de- ducted So instead of Queen Victoria and her family having been a source of expense to the national exchequer, it is probable that they have benefited the state to the extent of at least thirty million dollars; that is to say, they have relieved the taxpeyer from that amount of fiscal burden, thanks to the bargain concluded by Queen Victoria with par liament sixty-four years ago.
 The allowances subsequently, asked of parliament by the queen for her chill dren, in accordance with this arrange ment, were exceedingly modest. The eldest child of the queen, her daughter Victoria now the widowed Empress Frederick of Germany, received an al- owance for her life of forty thousand ( dollars per annum. King Edward, while still the Prince of Wales, was q obliged to content himself, until his ( children grew up, with an allowance of .wo hundred thousand dollars, which, on the marriage of his son and or two ,f his daughters, was increased by an- other one hundred and seventy-f1ve ( thousand dollars a year. for the pur- I pose of enabling him to make provision i lnerefrom for them. King Edwards c Jailor brother, Alfred, received, like his I brother, Arthur Duke of Con- t taught, one hundred and twenty-five t housand dollars year. But on AL d reds succeeding to the German throne e if Saxe- Coburg- Gotha, he relinquished S he major part of his English allow V Ince, which was reduced to fifty thou t. and dollars year. The three younger ls daughters of the late queen have each b hirty thousand dollars year, in addi- c ion to the one hundred and fifty thou e and dollars down which they received D t the time of their marriage Similar d nnuities of thirty thousand dollars are tt ranted to the widows of King Ed ,ard's brothers, the Dukes of Coburg nd Albany. The old Duke of Cam ridge, between whom and his first F ousin, Queen Victoria, there were only
 few weeks difference in age, draws ixty thousand dollars a year from the m reasury while his sister, Princess Au- nj 11sta of Great Britain, wife of the ",