STREET OF GOLD

Hokitika Guardian, 3 July 1925, Page 1

STREET OF GOLD

VALUABLE LONDON LEASE. NEW RECENT STREET. All the new leases, says a London paper, have now been granted for Lhe Siles ill Regent Street, In another 20 months or ibis great reconstriiriod London shopping thoroughfare, from the Queen’s llal Ito Piccadilly Circus, is likely to be completed. Much of the ground is ( rown property and the ground rents are in many cases ten iim.es as much as the old. It will mean an addition of hundreds of thousands a yeai' to the Crown land revenue. Rat the Royal family will not he a penny the richer. One of the bed bargains this country ever made was when Ihe land revenues ot the Crown in the I nitod Kingdom were surrendered by Ccorge 111 in 1760 in return for a fixed annual payment of the Civil List, I lie excellence of the deal was not apparent at l lie time, because tlie revenue amounted to about and the net return was m> more than £II.OOO. Bel in the past half-century these revenues have advanced by leaps and hounds, for the year ended March 31 1021, the total receipts amounted to Cl ,403.101. The expenditure was £525.08,3. and a sum of £'020,000 was paid to the Exchequer, it is estimated that tlie annual revenue to tlie Exchequer within the next few years will

exceed a million and a half. Against tin's there is to bo set off the allowances to the Royal Family. By the Civil List Act. 1010, there was granted an annuity to the King of £170.000, hut all but Cl 10.000 of this which is (-edited to ‘ Their Majesties’ Privy Purse, ’’ goes in salaries and expenses of the household and “works,” The Prince of Wales, who enjoys tho revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall, receives no allowance from Parliament, hut when he marries the Princess of Wales will he granted an annuity of £IO.OOO.

Tlie other sons of the King have been paid £IO,OOO a year since they came of age, and Princess Mary has £6OOO a year. When the Duke of York married Ids annuity was raised (o £25.000. The same allowance will be made to Prince Henry and Prince Ceorgc when they marry.

There are. of course, annuities still being paid to the surviving children of Queen Victoria and of King Edward, but in the aggregate all these sums, including the Civil List, do not equal the receipts from the Crown lands, and in the future will fall short of these revenues.

The monarchical system of government has otten been-opposed because it was “expensive.” Great Britain, at any rate, remarks the “Daily C'hroiiice." is actually making a profit out, ul its Roval Family