Greymouth Evening Star, AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1901. THE CIVIL LIST.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 19 June 1901, Page 2

Greymouth Evening Star, AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1901. THE CIVIL LIST.

In our late cablegrams the other day appeared an item that the King had assented to the Civil List, This list U granted by the Commons at the commencement of each reign, and cannot be interfered with, therefore the Royal assent is only a matter of form. Royalty is well enough, and the head of a State whether he be Emperor, King, President, or what not ought to be well paid for his services in order to keep him above the suspicion that was attached to the House of Stuart of selling themselves to the French King, but stili the ruling power should not be extravagantly paid. The Civil list of the late Queen Victoria, which only included her supposed personal allowance as paid out of the Consolidated Fund was assessed at £385,000 per annum. This comprised Her Majesty's salary £60,000 ; Her Majesty's household, £131,300; expenses in connection therewith, £172,500; pensions supposed to be granted by Bcr Majesty about £15,000; and unappropriate revenue, or odds and ends somewhere about £B,OOO. This is not a bad sum, but then there are other items and allowances which brings the sum up to nearly half-a-million per annum. To be sure this is not so much as is allowed by other nations to their rulers—indeed allowance is not the word, appropriated by themselves might be better. Thegrant does not include pensions to sons, grandsons, cousins, nephews, etc. But if the British taxpayer is satisfied we ought not to grumble. It would not matter very much if the reigning powers spent the money so liberally

granted by the nation, but as a rule they do not. In the case of George the Fourth be wasted his income and tbe nation paid bis debts. In the case of the late Queen she was very opposite. She was a true German and saved every half-penny, and if she doled out a few pounds for any charitable object it was somewhat against the grain. However she was a good Queen, nothing could be said againsther character and if she was inclined to be parsimonious, it was better than being wasteful, and her heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns are all the better for the savod-up millions. "What " the amount is nobody ever will know, for probate is not required in matters relating to Royalty. And yet it is still arguod by some that the amount is not sufficient, and that the new King will require an increased allowance. It is admitted that King Edward, since bis accession, has thrown off the mask which ho has worn for so many years, and has shown himself to be a live King, fully awake to the duties and responsibilities of his office, and resolved to assert his personality. So long as he does not attempt to usurp the functions of an autocratic ruler in the place of a constitutional monarch, this is a* thoroughly good trait in his character, and his actions in abolishing such as appanges as the Royal Buckhounds and certain other contemplated reforms he has shown himself to possess a will of his own. Besides the dispatching of his heir on a visit to the colonies, at the contemplated time, was a thoroughly politic and wise act. The King is fully alive to the existence of a Greater Britain and of the necessity of drawing closer together the bonds of unity of the Empire, but. withal this question of the Civil List expenditure is one that deserves careful consideration, and instead of being increased should be reduced, not so much as regards the actual personal expenditure of the King, but in the direction of the curtailment of pensions and the abolishing of offices that have no existence, only in name. The Sovereign up to 1873 was supposed to own no private property, but in that year an Act was passed, not without strong opposition, whereby he or she might be allowed to acquire private property out of the allowance or savings voted for the Civil List, independent of the recognised Crown possessions, and hence the Queen became possessed of Balmoral, Osborne, and other properties as personal and hereditary property entirely independent of what was termed Crown possessions. The Civil List is a vexed question and a difficult one to deal with, especially when the subject of vested interests and hereditary rights is taken into consideration.