THE KING'S CIVIL LIST.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9098, 16 March 1901, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE KING'S CIVIL LIST.

SOAIE RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PAST.

One of the important questions raised by the new reign is this— What mil be the annual amount paid by the nation to the new occupant of the throne? Jhe old arrangement ended with the death of her Alajesty. A new Civil List must be devised. Before the downfall of the Stuarts m 1688, no limitation was imposed upon the persona! expenditure of the Sovereign. At the commencement of each reign Parliament granted to the King the ordinary revenues of the Crown, and these were estimated to provide for the support of his Majesty's dignity and civil goveij-nment .m time of peace and for the_j>ublic defence. " . The lung's ordinary revenues included rents of Crown lands, feudal rights, proceeds of the Post Office, wine licenses and a portion of the Excise duty. Taxes voted to the King for life were included m these revenues which m the time of James H, amounted to a million and .a half a year. t THE AIERRY MONARCH. This million and a half it must be remembered, had to be used to defray the necessary expenses of government. The residue the King could use to support his dignity, influence, pleasures, and profusion. Such residue, then, was the King's privy purse par excellence. In the case of the very merry King Charles, the dignity, influence, pleasures, and profusion of the Sovereign came bejfore the necessary- expenses of Govern-, inent, which made it possible for a Dutchman to sail British seas with a broom at his masthead. It was to prevent the recurrence of such abuses that Parliament, after 1688, made a separate provision for the King's Civil List, "which embraced the support of the Royal Household, the King's personal expenses, as well as the payment of the civil offices and pensions. Some of it was granted, for life, some annually." Under this new arrangement William and Mary received, £700,000 a year. Queen Anne, unfortunately incurred one million and a quarter pounds' worth of debts, which Parliament paid off "by. way of loans charged upon the Civil List itself." ' . " During the reign of good King George JL Parliament promised that if the Civil List produced less than £800,000 a year, iti would makeup the deficiency. On the other hand, his Majesty could keep any surplus above that sum. The contract resulted m Parliament having to defray a deficiency of £456,000. s VITAL CHANGES. George HI. agreed to accept his fixed income as Civil List. Thenceforward the hereditary revenues of the Crown vrere lumped into the one big national purse, out of which a definite, sum of £800,000 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 . ttf .1768 reached a yearly j aver,ige_af £100,000. - * But quite apart from the ordinary revenues thus commuted, there were other sources of" income—namely, Crown and Admiralty droits,, hereditary revenues for Scotland, a separate Civil List for Ireland, and the rich Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. During Geofge'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 m 1769 and 1777 to apply to Parliaments to discharge two separate ctebts, each over half a million, and mostly contracted m packing that Parliament, with corrupt representatives and disillusionising peers. In 1777, moreover, he asked for the annual list to be raised to £900,000. . POLITICIANS INTERVENE. That brought Air Bourke 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 year, and the Secret Service Fund to £10,000 yearly. The King was brought to agree, and m return a Royal debt of £300,000 was discharged. Between 1760 and 1850 charges amounting to nearly ten millions, and wholly unconnected with the upkeep of the Sovereign's dignity and comfort, were shiftel from the Civil List to the public national purses. These charges included .such public concerns as the salaries of judges and Ambassadors, pensions for public services, annuities to members of the Royal Family, and the like. ANOTHER STEP. i In 1816 the expenses of the Boyal Household were subjected to the supervision and audit bf a treasury officer. William IV. surrendered the interest of the Crown m all extra-Civil List sources, such as the Crown and Admiralty droits mentioned above, and received m exchange a fixed annual Civil List of £510,000. . Queen Victoria received £385,000 a year, whereof .only an annual sum of £1200 could be used as a pension list. Apart 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 the crown for lifeIn the case of her predecessor, £75,000 was the yearly sum reserved as a pension list ; accordingly he had, £435,000 a year tb defray expenses, which our late Queen met with a yearly sjim of £383,800. It will be seen, then, that the huge Civil Lists of past days were apparent rather 'than real. The Sovereigns received huge sums; but they had to use these sums m the expenses of government — salaries to active public officers, pensions to passive ones. That Parliament was able to change all this was due most of all to the necessities of George HI. The total amount of debts discharged through his reign was £3,398,000; and this was the price at which he consented to many alterations m the mode of keeping the national purse.