THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1910. THE KAISER AND THE COST OF LIVING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10074, 21 June 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1910. THE KAISER AND THE COST OF LIVING.

The German Emperor, who is also J King of Prussia, has been feeling the pinch of the increased cost of living so severely that the Prussian ! Government has proposed to increase [ his civil list, which at present ' stands at £850,000, by £200,000. The late King Edward VII. of the United Kingdom, managed to get along comfortably enough with a civil list ot £576,000, which included the allowances paid to all the members of the Royal family. Owing to the high cast of living'in Berlin—and toother reasons-the German Emperor will draw in future as King of Prussia nearly double the amount that the late King Edward drew as King of the United Kingdom, and the oversea dependencies, and Em* peror of India. The official income of the Kaiser as King of Prussia is to be'-£1,050)000 a year; but he iValso,' according to a rceent authority, the biggest landowner in Prussia, with an immense private income, and his

rrandfather, the Emperor William ~ left him a fortune of £2,500,000. still, as he practically bears the enire expense of the Imperial Opera' n Berlin, which costs many thoulands yearly, and also has many •oyal theatres to keep up, his reguar outgoings must be considerable. Slothing runs away with money so ( East as running theatres—except' a hen they are run as business propositions. Also his expenses in railway travelling are heavy, as whenever he travels by rail—which he does frequently—he uses a train of eleven magnificent carp, fitted with every convenience, and the average running cost is £lO per mile, which he has to defray out of his privy purse. Still the Kaiser must be regarded as exceptionally fortunate in getting his civil list raised by £200,000 a year in consequence of the increased cost of living in protectionist Cermany ? Less favoured people in other protectionist countries find that the cost of living goes up just as fast as it does in Germany, but their salaries remain at the same figure as before. The German Emperor owes his good fortune to the fact that the Prussian Government is his paymaster, and though (he Prussian Government requires the authorisation of the Landtag, there is no chance of the Landtag refusing to vote the money. And the reason why it cannot refuse is that by the electoral law of Prussia all taxpayers arc divided into three classe?, accordirg to the amount of properly possessed by them. By an ingenious arrangement it is found possible for the wealthy few always to outvote the poverty-stricken many in the elections for the Landtag, so that the great mass of the taxpayers of small means are altogether unrepresented. And they are the only ones who would be likely to question the necessity of putting up the Emperor's salary to something over a million a year.