The Cost of Royalty.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 146, 23 June 1887, Page 2

The Cost of Royalty.

(To the Editor.)

S tß) —Would you'kindly enlighten me on the following in your "Answers to Correspondents :"—Are the hereditary sources of revenue mentioned in your-leader on Monday the private property of the sovereign,' or national property '! That IS, if monarchy were abolished in England, would the ex-king or queen conserve the revenues, or forfeit them :' Would not the country get tho revenues minus the expense of Royalty, if Royalty was done away with ? —I am, etc., Patriqt.

(To the Editor.) Sir, — You say the ,Royal expenditure amounts to L808,31(i. Now, very nearly half of this expenditure is met by revenue accruing from property absolutely'belonging to the Crown, but ceded to the country some years ago, as you show (though lam puzzled to understand your figures as given in connection with the revenues surrendered in the time of George IV. and William IV., and I doubt the fact you state, that they' were over three millions a-year in - the latter reign.) But taking the Royal Family expenditure at your own figures—Lßoß,3lb'and dividing it among the 38 millions of the population, we get the result that the so-called " royal costliness " amounts to about 5d per head— a little over the price of one "pot" of porter in England. If we deduct the revenue, derived from Crown, properties this 3d is reduced to about 3d per head.' Compare this with New Zealand,' arid you will discover the further fact that Our own Governor costs us precisely the same sum, per head of the population, as tiie whole of the Royal Family cost the Britishers. But if we go a step further — as' we are fairly entitled to do—and consider the cost of our two so-called " Houses of [Parliament," wo, find the .united salaries of the members divided among the population amounts to about one shilling a head —-just.four times the sum entailed on the British unit.of population by that " extravagant and. costly Royal Family" the Empire is so proud of. I am often amused to hear and read the claptrap of some demagogues decrying and howling at the crushing burden of the Home National Debt; and the interest payable annually by the poor taxpayer. Here, again, figures —which' these individuals don't trouble themselves in any way about— show us that the debt amounts, per head of population, to about L2O capital, and lis interest; whilst ours in New Zealand are respectively L 65 and L 3 3s. Thus, it will be seen that this paltry little tin-pot colony in those matters'is a long way ahead of the slow Old Country; andT am forcibly reminded of two of j-Esop's fables—the hare and the tortoise, and the frog trying to blow himself out to the size of the ox. The former in each'cas'o, you remember, " bust himself" in the end.—l am, etc., J.H.C.

;[A note upon these letters appears among our sub-leaders elsewhere.—Ed. E.S.J