THE KING’S CIVIL LIST

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4318, 29 March 1901, Page 3

THE KING’S CIVIL LIST

SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PAST. One of the important questions raised by the new reign is this— What will be tin annual amount paid by the nation to the new occupant of the thronef The old ar rangement ended with the death of her Majesty. A new Civil List must be devised. Before the downfall of the Stuarts id ICBB. no limitation was imposed upon tin personal expenditure of the Sovereign. A the commencement of each reign Parlia ment granted to the King tho ordinary re venues of the Crown, and these were esti mated to provide for the support of hisMajesty’s dignity and civil government i; time of peace and for the public defence. The King’s ordinary revenues include! rents of Crown lands, feudal rights, pro ceeds of the. Post Office, wine licenses am a portion of the Excise duty. Taxes vofec to the King for life were included in Hies revenues which in the time of James If amounted to a million and u hall a your. THE MERRY MONARCH.

This million and a half, it must'be remembered, had to be used to defray tin necessary expenses of government. 'Th residue the King could use to support indignity, influence, pleasures, and profit sion. ‘Such residue, then, was the Kingt privy purse par excellence. Iu the case of the very merry King Charles, the dignity, influence, pleasures and profusion of the Sovereign came be fore the necessary expenses of Government, which made it possible for a Dutch man to sail British seas with a broom a' his mast head, jfc was to prevent the re currence of such abases that Parliament, after 1688, made a separate provision foi the King’s Civil List, “which embrace! the support of tile Royal Household, th King’s personal -expenses, as well as fin "ayment of the civil offices and pensions Some of it was granted for life, some an uually," Under this new arrangement Willian and Mary received £700,000 a year. Queej Anne, unfortunately, incurred one millioi and a quarter pounds’ worth of debts which Parliament paid off “h' r way o' loans charged upon tho Civil List itself.” During the reign of good King George 11, Parliament promised that if the Civil List-produced less than £BOO,OOO a year, it would make up the deficiency. On the other hand, his Majesty could keep any surplus above that sum. The contract resulted in Parliament having to defray a deficiency of £456,000. VITAL CHANGES.

George 111. agreed to accept a fixed income as his Civil List. Thenceforward the hereditary revenues of the Crown were lumped into the one big national purse, out of which a definite sum of £890,000 was annually paid. The arrangement marks the first occasion on which any sovereign had acknowledged direct control over his expenditure. The King at the same time relinquished all claim to any surplus, which from 1760 to 1768 reached’a yearly average of £IOO.000.

But quite apart from the ordinary revenues thus commuted, there were other sources of income—namely, ‘Grown and Admiralty droit's, hereditary revenues for Scotland, a separate Civil List for Ireland, and the rich Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. During George’s reign some of these were contributed to the public service; but nearly five millions were actually enjoyed by the Crown. Five millions notwithstanding, the King had in 17G9 and 1777 to apply to Parliament to discharge two separate debts, each over half a milion, and mostly contracted in packing that Parliament with corrupt representatives and. disillusionising peers. In 1777, moreover, he asked for his annuaMist to be raised to £900,000. POLITICIANS INTERVENE.

That brought Mr Burke up with proposals for economic reform, which would have meant a yearly saving of £200,000 to the country. The country, however, preferred the suggestions put forward by Lord Rockingham, whose Civil List Act abolished about forty useless offices, and reduced the Pension List to £90,000 a rear, and the Secret Service Fund to £IO,OOO yearly. ,The King was brought to agree, and in return a Royal debt of £3OO 000 was discharged; • . - Between 1760 and 1850 charges amounting to nearly ten millions, and wholly unconnected with the upkeep- of the Sovereign*# dignity and comfort, wero shifted from the IJivll List to the pnbik national minm*. These charge* included such pul). Ihi compu’tifl m tjifi «*i»t>Jws of JndtfW *iuj Ambassador*, pwimon* for mi bun. wwvjpjw, annuities to mtmiws ef w Roy pi Jmmily, and th# Uk*i ANOTHER step. 1 In 1816 the expenses of the Royal Household were subjected to the supervision and audit of a treasury officer, William IV, surrendered the interest of the Crown in all extra-Civip List sources, such aa the Crown and Admiralty droits mentioned above and received in exchange a fixed annual Civil List of £510,000. Queen Victoria received £385,000 a year, whereof only, an annual sum of £1,200 could be need as a pension list, from that small sum, the whole amount was exclusively devoted to the payment of her. Majesty’s household and personal expenses. On her side, the Queen agreed to surrender the hereditary revenues •of tbe crown for life.

In the case of her predecessor, .£75,000 was the. yearly sura reserved os a pension list: accordingly he had £435.000 a year to defray evnena's. which o r late Unea.n met with a yearly sum of £"81 8 >O. I will lr seen, then that the huge Civil T.ista of past da’s were apparent rather than real. 'Hie Sovereigns received huge* sums; hut they had to use these sums in the expenses of government—salaries to active public officers, pensions to passive ones. That Parliament was able to chance all this was due most of all to the necessities of George 111. The total amount of debts discharged through his reign was £3.358,000: and this was the price at which he consented to many alterations in the mode of keeping the national purse.