STREETS OF GOLD.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4859, 31 July 1925, Page 3

STREETS OF GOLD.

VALUABLE LONDON LEASE, NEW REGENT STREET. All the new leases, says a London paper, have now been granted for the sites in Regent Street. In another 20 months or so this great reconstructed London shopping thoroughfare, from the Queen’s Hall to Piccadilly Circus, is likely to be compelled. Much of the ground is Crown property, and the ground rents are in many cases ten times as much as the old. It will mean an additional hundreds of thousands a year to the Crown land revenue. But the Royal family will not be a penny the richer. One of the best bargains this country ever made was when the land revenues of the Crown in the United Kingdom were surrendered by George III 1 , in 1760 :n return for a fixed annual payment of the Civil List. The excellence of the deal was not apparent at the time, because the revenue amounted to about £89,000, and the net return was no more than £ll,OOO. But in the past half-century these revenues have advanced by leaps and bounds. For the year ended Marcn' 31, 1924, the total receipts amounted to £1,493,491. The expenditure was £525,083, and £920,000 was paid to the Exchequer. It is estimated that the annual revenue to the Exchequer within the next few years will exceed a million and a half. Against this there is to be set off the allowances to the Royal Family. By the Civil List Act, 1910, there was granted an annuity to the King of £470,000, but all but £llo',ooo of this which is credited to "Thfeir Majesties’ Privy Purse,’ goes in salaries and expenses of the household and "works.” The Prince of Wales, who enjoys the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall, receives no allowance from Parliament, but when he marries the Princess of Wales will be granted an annuity of £25,000. The same allowance will be made to Prince Henry and Prince George when they marry. The other sous of the King have been paid £lO,OOO a year since they came of age, and Princess Mary has £6OOO a year. When the Duke of York married his annuity was raised £lO,OOO. 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 Ciown lands, and in the future will fall far short of these revenues.

The monarchial system of government has often been opposed because it fe “expensive.” Great Britain, at any rate, is actually making a profit out of its Royal Family.