THE STEEL TRUST.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1205, 14 August 1911, Page 7

THE STEEL TRUST.

HAS THE KINO AN INTEREST 't Br Tdcffraph-Profla Aesociation-Copyiicht Washington, August 11, Mr. Gcorgo Perkins, director of tho United Slates Steel Corporation, answering further questions'before tho Congressional Committee of Inquiry, declared that the existing laws were making it impossible to conduct business by tho big corporations. Asked how much Ki/ig George had invested in tho Steel Corporation, Mr. l'erkins replied that ho did not know— tho King had never told him.' THE MONARCH'S PRIVATE FORTUNE. UTMOST SECHECY MAINTAINED. Little ever becomes publicly known aS to the investments of British monarchs. Qucem Victoria, however, was understood to be largely interested in valuable coal properties at Newcastle, New South Walts. Nothing definite, for instance, ns a,-re-cent writer points out, will ever bo known, concerning tho testamentary dispositions of Eihvnrd VII. The Courts of Probate have no power over tho will-of the Sovereign, nor is thero any legal machinery by which probate can bo granted. Therefore, the public has no intans of ascertaining its contents. Even so great a go«ip as Charles Grcvillo, author of tho fnnious "Memoirs," was un nblo to obtain any information regarding the wills of George IV and William IV, despite his being the secretary and chwf clerk of their Privy Council.

Only one lioyal English will has ever been made public. It was that of Henry VIII. But it related to the disposition of the Crown rather than to his private Jroperty. After his marriage with Lady ano Seymour ho scoured an Act of Parliament authorising him to dispose of tho Crown, either by letters patent "or by his last will, made in writing, and signed under his hand to such person or persons, in )>QSSossion or remainder, and after such order or condition as ho should judge expedient." The will was made and deposited in the registry of the Prerogative Court of (ho Archbishopric of Canterbury, and its provisions, devising the Crown, in default of issue, of his children—EdwanT. Mary,' and Elizabeth— to the grandchildren of his younger sister, are fully set out in Fuller's "Church History of Britain." . . .

In ISO!) Pitt, (hen Prime Minister, secured the enactment by Parliament of a measure known as tho "Private Property of Sovereign" Act, authorising tho King, his heirs and successors, "by any instrument under his or their lioyal sign manual, attested by two witnesses, or by his or thwr last will and testament in writing, duly signed by him ond attcstfd by witnesses," to "give or devise any lands, properly, etc., purchased out of moneys issued # and applied for the use of the Privy Purse," or with nioncyos "not appropriated to any public service." A section of this Act declares that all moneys for tho Privy Purse, or not appropriated to any public service or effects, which shall not come to his Majesty in right of (ho Crown, shall bo dwniod personal estate, and subject to disposition by his will in writing. Still another clause of the same Act dispenses with tho necessity of publication of the terms of tho will.

To what extent the provisions of the will of a monarch receive execution depends largely on the good will of his successor, ami it is a matter of historic record that when, after the death of George I, the Archbishop of Canterbury handed to his son.Georgo 11, the deceased monarch's will, by the terms of which ho had made enormous bequests to his German' sultana, the Duchess of and to; other equally unsavoury favourites, the new King consigned it to tho flames. It , is only within, the last two years that through the unearthing of sonic documents in the British Museuin information was obtained (subsequently substantiated by official records in Germany) that the King had not destroyed liio, father's will until he had submitted it to 1 his Ministers of the Crown in England and in' Hanover, and had obtained their approval of its destruction us a shameful ami altogether disgraceful document, calculated to injure the dynasty. Other rulers are understood to have acted in much the same way when confronted by analogous testamentary dispositions on tho part of their predecessors on tho throne, and those who suffer thereby havo virtually no nreans of rodress.