PAYMENTS TO ROYALTY.

Mataura Ensign, 13 May 1910, Page 6

PAYMENTS TO ROYALTY.

The Dowager-Queen Alexandra in her widowhood will receive an income suited to her station without the need arising for any Parliamentary vote on the matter. The Civil List Act of 1901 provided that in the event of the death of the King a sum of £7ojooo annually should be paid to the Queen-Consort, so that the Government will be spared the necessity of maknig a decision on a rather delicate, subject. The Civil List of Britain involves a very large sum of monev, the grant from the Consolidated Fund reaching a total of nearly £600,000, but it has to be remembered that the Royal family would have been in a still better position financially had not various Sove-

reigns surrendered portions of their hereditary revenues drawn from Crown lands. The increased land values have benefited the general revenue of the State. In 1908-09 the sum of £470,000 was paid for the Privy Purse, the ex. penses of the Royal liousehodls and other personal services connected with their Majesties. The annuities paid to members of the Royal family amounted to £106,000, and in additoin the King received the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, a sum of about £60,000, and the Prince of Wales those of the Duchy of Cornwall, totalling over £80;000. The late King, like Queen Victoria, always paid income tax on the Privy Purse. The rulers of Great Britain at the present time cannot command the enormous suras of money that passed through the hands of some of their predecessors. Until the period of the Restoration in 1660 the whole expenses of, the government of England, civil and military, were included in one list and were defrayed from what was called the Royal revenue. This money was drawn from Crown lands, hereditary excise and other hereditary revenues and the ordinary excise, and it was in effect at the untrammelled disposal of the monarch. After the Restoration Parliament made a definite grant for the Civil List, and since that time there has been a steady tendency to increase the power of the people's representatives in dealing with all payments to Royalty apart from the grants of a purely personal character.