THE PRINCE OF WALES'S DEBTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 82, 21 November 1874, Page 14

THE PRINCE OF WALES'S DEBTS.

— *+ — A eepoet has suddenly gained currency that the long-expected crisi^ has occurred in the financial affairs of the Prince of WaleFj and that the Ministry have made up their minds to propose to the House of Commons next session to pay his debts. The sum is £640,000 sterling, nearly three millions and a-half of our money, and four times the sum voted in 1787 to appease the creditors of that pattern of royalty who afterwards became George IV. It greatly exceeds any estimate I ever before heard of what was likely to be wanted, and is so large as to be almost incredible. Ido not vouch for the story. I can only say that it comes from several sources, and that they all agree as to the disposal and as to the amount. It is difficult to suppose that the Ministry would give any hint of such an intention, if they really entertain it. Their best chance of carrying the vote would lie in surprise. They might possibly hurry it through the House as they have just done the grant of £15,000 a-year to Prince Leopold, without notice. But if they give the country six months to talk about it, they are certain to be met with a strong opposition. And whether in the House this Ministry can carry such a thing through must depend, after all, on the state of feeling outside. Now, there are certain to be two powerful and contradictory sentiments about it ; one that the honor ot the nation is concerned in providing for the debts of its future king ; the other that these debts are of a character which ought to be paid out of the accumulated fortune of the Queen. The latter view rests on the well-known fact that the Queen has been receiving ever since the death of Prince Albert the whole of the income calculated at her accession to support the expense of the' court in its usual degree of splendour; that Her Majesty has, however, lived during this period for the most part in retirement, and that the cost of drawing-rooms, levees, and other royal pageantries has, in fact, fallen upon the Prince and Princess of Wales, whose income has been unequal to euch a burden. The existing debts, or a considerable part of them, have, according to this theory, been incurred in the discharge of these duties ; hence it is urged that the Queen, who has had and kept the money given her by the State for such purposes, ought to pay them; To coiae to the State is, in fact, to

ask the State to pay twice over for the same thing. However, I need not anticipate the discussion. If this report be well founded, or even be widely circulated, the discussion will come Boon enough, and will be violent on both sides. The grants now made to the Royal family annually are as follows : — The Queen's civil list, £385,000, of which, however, only £60,000 is paid into Her Majesty's privy purse ; the Prince of Wales, £40,000 ; the Princess of Wales, £10,000 ; the Crown Princess of Germany, £8000 ; the Duke of Edinburgh, £25,000 ; the Duke of Connaught, £15,000 ; the Princesses Alice, Helena, and Louise, £6000 each; the Duchess of Teck, £5000; the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Streilitz, and her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, £3000 each ; and the Duke of Cambridge, £12,000. This gives a total of £524,000, which is, of coarse, exclusive of the revenue derived by the Queen from the Duchy of Lancaster, and by the Prince of Wales from the Duchy of Cornwall. And now Prince Leopold, who has attained his majority, comes in. for £15,000. — Correspondent of c New York Tribune.'

The Meaning op Theh. — The .various names of tea hove their own peculiar meanings. Congou is simply a corruption of Kungfu, wlrich signifies labor. Souchong means " White Sprouts 5 " Pekoe, " White Down." The Wuliee Hills, on which Bohea is produced, gives it its name. Oolung signifies " Black Dragon ; " Kungnoey, "Red Plum;" Hyson, "Fair Spring;" and Twankay, "Beacon Brook." Young Hyson is called by the Chinese, Yutseen, or "Before the Rains."

Whilst the civil list of the King of Italy dispenses fabulous sums in the purchase of Villas, hunting grounds, and palaces, Pius IX., stripped of his temporal power, buys up dilapidated houses, which he has restored and let to the poorer classes at very low prices. His Holiness has already disposed in this manner of a- number of lodgings in the quarter of the Trastevere, and we learn from the 'Journal de Florence ' that quite recently he has purchased many buildings round the Vatican, -which are being repaired in order to be ready by the autumn for the poor of Rione Borgo.