PEERAGE EXPENSES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10037, 6 May 1910, Page 4

PEERAGE EXPENSES.

Elevation to the House oi Lords is an expensive honour. A writer in ] "T.P.'s Weekly" points out that Mr Herbert Gladstone will be charged £467 4s 6d for the privilege of calling himself Viscount Gladstone, and Mr Ivor Guest, who was created a peer about the same time, will have to pay £360 17s. The reason for the difference is that Mr Uuest has been made a mere baron, a rank lower than that of viscount. The charges l are made up of stamp duties, Crown

Office ffies, and Home Office fees. In these days of peer-baiting, the authorities might waive the odd sixpences, and even the odd shillings, but the feus are exacted to the last penny and terms are strictly cast?. However, poor men are not made Peers, and the authorities no doubt consider that the honour ia cheap at the price. As one goes up in the scale of the peerage, the fees increase, a duke being called upon to pay over £BOO from an income sadly depleted

by Radical incursions. Then there art the robes of the new dignity to be purchased. These are elaborate anc expensive, but rarely worn. Rauica! cartoonists love to depict peers it their coronets as if these were dailj and probably some peoph really think that the peers weal these insignia during debates. Bui the only occasions on>which they an used are coronations, or when a peei sits in state for a photograph or pot trait. It is whispered that some peer* do not go to the expense of buying robes and coronets, but borrow 01 hire them for the occasion. Perhaps

among the dark secrets of the peerage there are cases of coronets being entrusted to the safe keeping of gentlemen willing to advance money upon them. On what is rumoured to be in some cases the heaviest item in the bill of costs of admission to the Lords the article is discreetly silent. It is charged against both parlies

that in some cases a substantial contribution to party funds is a necessary preliminary to elevation, and the arnuunts mentioned in one or two cases have been almost staggering. This, however, is a point on which the world will probably never be fully enlightened. If there are such transactions, thev are secrets that are well kept.