RUMOURED YEARLY ALLOWANCE TO THE PRINCESS ROYAL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 505, 5 September 1857, Page 3

RUMOURED YEARLY ALLOWANCE TO THE PRINCESS ROYAL.

The " London Evening Sun" thus speaks out on this] subject, in an article addressed to the electors of the United Kingdom, just immediately preceding the late general election: —Electors, the rumour has been that the new Parliament will be asked for £50.000 per annum !—for the interest of £1,000,000 at 5 per cent. —to marry the Princess Royal to a Prussian prince ! Could Prussia and its royal family be degraded further in the eyes of Europe, we should say that such a mercenary transaction would sink them yet lower. Happily for us the credit of Prussia >is not in our keeping; for we certainly would not discount a single draft on her honour. But we must bethink ourselves of the credit of our own Royal Family, and :of our own pockets. These are points for the hustings. Nothing made Queen Adelaide so unpopular with the nation, nothing so indisposed it to mourn for her death, as the repulsive Germanism which taxed the people so unmercifully, either to enable her to roll in wealth or to enrich her poor German relations. We would not have our young Princess brought into the same mortifying position. We should like our Royal Family to be favourites with the country. They will be so, if only reasonable support is asked for them, but if our Princesses ar.e to cost us £50,000 a. year each—bless us—where is the end to be? If the daughters are to be salaried in this. style, and the sons in proportion; and if the latter, are to swallow up military sinecures retained as special rewards for veteran service, Lord Palmerston may rest assured that the country will think we pay too much for the whistle of royalty, and that the opinion will spread that a president is

better. Prodigiously less costly at least. Let electors be awake. There is the utmost danger of a job. The Prince and the Premier will need the voice of the country to enable them to resist the urgency of German, especially Prussian, avarice. They must be able to reply that England will not endure it. That England expects her Princesses to marry husbands who car. support them— especially if they marry members of a royal family. That England would much rather have had nothing to do in the royal marriage line with a country it despises more than any other in Europe, but that, if the young people are in love, why the country of the husband must maintain the happy pair. We have no objection to ghe our Princess Royal £50,000 as a dowry, and to have done with it. Against any further taxing of the country to enrich a Prussian husband we firmly protest. £50,000 reward per annum, then, to the electors, if they now speak out. It is in a new Parliament that Courts and Cabinets get through with such jobs as these. Nothing will.prevent something of the kind but pledging the candidates to vote against it. It'is folly to talk of reducing expenditure if such annual burdens are to be inflicted on us. It taxpayers do their duty at the hustings, and on that condition only, they will obtain for themselves the reward of £50,000 per annum.