AN AMBASSADOR’S EXPENSES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1128, 31 July 1883, Page 3

AN AMBASSADOR’S EXPENSES.

To send a Special Ambassador to the coronation of the Czar (says Truth) is an absurdity, for we already have an Ambus s»dor in Russia who is to receive a special allowance for representing her Majesty. But to send, as Special Ambassador, a Royal Duke on the cheap is still more absurd. The Duke of Edinburgh is to receive £4OOO for his expenses. It is almost cruel to him to entrust him with the mission, for either he will appear ridiculous by not spending like other Ambassadors, or he will have to draw so largely on his private resources that the alloted £4OOO will be a trifle hardly worth taking. The accounts of the Due de Morny, who represented France at the coronation of the late Czar, Alexander II have been published. The total expended was £54,835 0s He took with him 19 horses and eight carriages Every dayninety-three persons, including servants, dined at his expense. He gave eight official dinners and two large halls. The external illumination of his house cost £392. He paid his washer-woman three shillings for washing each of his shirts. It is true that the Due de Morny personally made a good thing of the Embassy, for, whilst he charged all his expenses to the State, he took with him a vast quantity of wine, which he introduced free of duty and then sold at a large profit, and he brought back with him numberless furs, which ha also sold. The Duke of Edinburgh is not likely to follow this example, and if he really does the thing well, he will be out oi pocket many thousand pounds.