EXPENSIVE TITLES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 226, 18 May 1932, Page 7

EXPENSIVE TITLES

THE FINANCIAL ASPECT. In a realistic moment, taxes being due, a British duke took his gold and jewelled coronet to a Bond Street jeweller and yeceived therefor in paper pounds the equivalent of £10,440 (says the New York Times). It is only at coronations that coronets are serviceable. Tbus its intrinsic value, if invested in British consols would have brought him in during the sixtyfour years of Yictoria5s reign £26,720. And in any emergency he could have got a new one for £50. All that had kept the original in the family more thap a century was sentiment. Most new peers do not buy a coronet until a new sovereign eomes to the throne. "We made,55 said a member of London's leading firm of Court jewellers, "hundreds of coronets just before the coronation of King George V. But since then we have mp.de scarcely any. "Coronets are supposed to be made of gold,55 he went on, "and in the old 'days when all peers were rich men they generally were of gold; now they are made of silver or silver gilt. A baron's coropet, the least expensive kind, costs about £20; those of viscounts, earls, marquises, and dukes, more in proportion up to £50.55 Being made a peer of England is ' nevertheless 'expensive in several I ways, as five erstwhile commoners ! who recently were ennobled by the | King ai'e finding out. Before the pro1 cess is finished epch as baron will j have been "stung" to the amount, counting in the cost of his robes, of at least £800. To begin with there is the matter of„tbe fees and stamp duties payable on every new peer's letters patent, as I the documents officially granting a title are called. These charges, to • 1 gether, range from £1080 for a duke to £360 for a baron and less or more in proportion for one of the intermediate titles of marquis, earl and viscount. Expensive Process. The five new "creptions55 being barons, each of them will by now have been presented by the Board of Inland Revenue with a bill for £15-0 (at the normal rate of 'exchange) in stamp duties; for £180 in Crown Oit iie fees; and for £3Q in HQWe Office | fees on his letters patent. That totals ; £360. j The next item on the newly created peer's programme of expenditure is . the cost of armorial bearings, name- ' ly, coat of arms, crest, etc., which every nobleman is expected to have. i' Grapting arms and devising them is the business of the Heralds' College. A bpron's coat of arms, with crest pnd motto, costs £75. If the baron wants "supporters, too — the heraldic figures on each side of ths shield— - they will cost him anothep £55, .and if he also desires to have a badge, that will be another £50. In other words, the least expensive variety of armorial bearings for a peer costs, complete, about £180, while the dearest, the complete heraldic insignia of a duke, works out, in fees, at about £300. So far our newly made peer's title has cost him £540. For the first few months after his accession the newlyfledged nobleman is inundated with official documents demanding a license for one or another of his new privileges. Among others, that for the coronet on his carriages or automobiles' and the "stamp on his notepaper. He will be lucky' if these latter fees •cost Him less than £50. Then there is the cost of his robes, if he buys xobes, and his coronet if he has a coronet."