THE ROMANOFFS' VAST WEALTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13781, 20 June 1908, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE ROMANOFFS' VAST WEALTH.

The Imperial family of Russia is the richest Royal family in Europe, and derives its wealth from three sources—the State Treasury, the Imperial Domains (formerly Church lands) and the so-called " Cabinet Properties." The State Treasury provides for the Tsar as the Sovereign, "the Imperial Domains are the joint, property of the members of the House of Romanoff, but administered by the head of the house ; the " Cabinet Properties" are the personal possessions of tin reigning sovereign as such. No data of any kind are available for estimating the amount of property held by the Tsar and other members of his house in their private capacity as individuals. It is known to be very considerable both in land and in gold, but is very rightly treated as a purely private matter. The State Treasurv pays out a million and a-half sterling per annum for the needs of the Imperial House, principally lor the maintenance of the palaces and the officials and servants attached to them. The reigning Empress, for example, lias an allowance of £20,000 a year, the Dowager-Empress the same. Every child born to the Tsar receives from birth to the age of 21 nearly £4000 a year, while the heir to the throne receives annually, in addition to maintenance of palaces, £10,000. Daughters receive a dowry of one million roubles, or a hundred thousand pounds, when they marry. The figures under this head are comparatively modest, and the total expenditure charged to the State Treasury is less than one per cent, of the annual budget. The Imperial Domains, the main source of the wealth of the Romanoffs, were originally Church lands. In the Middle Ages the Church in Russia was not only the repository of all the learning of the land, but its bankers and usurers also, and the wealth amassed in the course of centuries was enormous. The Russian Church is not poor now, but the bulk of its vast possessions passed to the House of Romanoff a century ago. The Imperial Domains comprise 21,328,000 acres, an area larger than all Ireland. About two-thirds of this area is forest, out of which a good revenue is made: the timber, exported from Archangel is known all over the world, while the estate of Bleovezh, that magnificent forest where are still preserved herds of the aurochs, annuallv provide for sale 2,000,000 cubic feet of timber: another estate in the Vologda Province produces 200,000 of the largest timber trees annually for the Imperial sawmills there. The. other third of the area .comprised in the Imperial Domains, something larger than all Wales, is highly cultivated land. The largest vineyards, producing the best wine in Russia, belong to the Domains, and about £150,000 worth of wine is sold annually from this source. ,In the province lot Samara is a sugar plantation, the factory on which produces 1500 tons of rugat every vear Mineral wealth is worked in flthundred spots; 1500 flour mills, 1000 fisheries, not for sport, but as an article of trade, 100 wharves on various rivers, and Sou tradincr concerns of various kinds are among the minor undertakings belonging to the Imperial Domains. But the greater part of the cultivated area is rented to others, 15,000 lots for purely agricultural purposes and 10,000 for the higher forms ot cultivation, fruit, vinevards. etc. The clear profit derived from these various sources is over £2,000,000 sterling per annum. During the past hundred years, since the Church property was converted to the Imperial use, a sum of £25,000,000 sterling has been paid out to various members of the Imperial House. Under the head of Imperial Domains is also included certain capital accumulated by vario* emperors, and to this must be added the five and aSartor millions sterling received from the pedant, who were serfs on the Imperial Domains as the price of their to _ A third source of income is the Cabinet Properties " which belong to the reigning T« personally as Tsar. The only figures obtainable for assessing the value of this, the greatest source of present and future wealth is the area of the landed property which is 115,000.000 acres, or about the size of France. This property is almost entity in Siberia, but it includes the best and larcest of the gold and silver mines, worked g and unworked, besides a fabulous amount of unexplored wealth both above and below the 1 surface. Copper iron, platinum, and other ores, besides'gold * o d f silver, are only awaiting the opening up of this unexplored territory, the size of France, to yield many more millions annually.

In an address before the Royal Photographic Society Mr. G. A. Storey A.R.A., faida man would take a better photograph of a woman he loved than of one whom he did not. love, even though the same desire to make a Rood likeness was present in each case. Similarly, a portrait painted by a stupid person would make the sitter look stupid, however technically excellent it might be.

During May (says our London corresponlent), there is to bo a big •demonstration" in Trafalgar Square organised bv the committee of the London and Provincial Hop-pickers' Defence Association. In recent letters I have mentioned that the hopgrowing industry of Kent and elsewhere is suffering seriously from foreign competition, and that disheartened and disappointed growers of hops have in several cases gone out to New Zealand in order to make a fresh start in life: if they are successful in the Dominion many other families will be influenced to follow and becin all things anew. For the coming " Hop Saturday" demonstration support will be given bv hopgrowers and tradesmen in the affected districts, and the processions will be formed of hop merchants, factors, growers, measurers, blnmen, labourers, and pickers, altogether to the number of some 35,000. This gathering will be the outcome of many meetings which are now being held iu hopgrowing districts as a protest against the impending ruin of the English industry by unfair foreign competition, and the dumping of foreign hopsi in England. It is noted that the dilatory methods being pursued by the Select Committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the industry are exciting much indignation among all classes interested in the matter.