Food for Reflection.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 9, 30 June 1887, Page 4

Food for Reflection.

The incomes of the royal families of Europe amount close upon£l3,ooo 000 a year. Germany stands at the head of all European nations in the matter of royal incomes. That empire with a population more than 45,000,000, supports twenty-two royal, princely and ducal families, and the direct cost of their maintenance is £3,000,000. In Prussia and several of the other German States the reigning family, beside its public income, possesses very large private estates, and, indeed, in some of the States, the Princes are the chief landowners. In Mecklenberg Strelitz, for instance, the reigning family owns three fifths of the land, and the Grand Duke governs without the aid of any representative institutions whatever. Turkey comes next to Germany in its royal expenditures, the total amount absorbed by the Sultan and his family being about £3,200,000. The imperial family of Bussia costs that country about £2,400,000, the greater part of which comes in the shape of rents from the crown domains, which consist of more than 1,000,000 square miles of- land,. beside gold and silver mines. - The Austrian Imperial family is tolerably well off, having a revenue of £920,000, all of which comes directly from the revenue of the country. The British Royal Family comet, next, with cost to the country of about £020,000. This sum includes the revenue derived from the: Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, which amounts to £lll,OOO. The Duchess of Cambridge, now eighty-eight years of age, continues to draw from the British Treasury £6,003 a year, besides enjoying the royaE palaces of St. James’ and Kew as her. residences. Italy pays her royal family family £660,000, which is a very large sum in proportion to the means of the country, while Spain disburses on the same account £400,000. This ends the list of the European monarchies of large population. But the minor monarchies also pay their royal families very large sums. Belgium pays £133,500 a year to her King, and Portugal, with 750,000 less population,pays£l27,ooo. Monarchy costs Sweden and Norway £117,500 annually; Denmark, £62,000; Holland, £68,000; Houmania, £40,800; Greece, £42,000, but £2,000 of this last sum is paid by England, France, and Russia. Republican France gives her President £36,000, two thirds of which is in the form of salary, and one third for household expenses. The Swiss republic pays its President £6OO a year, which is probably the smallest sum that the head of any civilized nation iu the world receives. All the expenditures of Switzerland are on a correspondingly low scale. The expenditures of the Confederation do not reach £2,000,000 annually.— Public Opinion.