QUEEN VICTORIA'S INCOME

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1525, 13 April 1882, Page 4

QUEEN VICTORIA'S INCOME

Tin: chief newspaper crank of this city, periodically in that j>eetiliar phase of its lunacy indicated by the change of the moon, rehearses its little story about the income of Queen Victoria. No doub our contempory believes it. He would believe anything in his dementia, however •ibsnrd, about his pet aversion — England and everything English. Thirteen times in the year the Chronicle talks about the " enoimons" sum of money the English Parliament grants the Queen, amounting to— well, as every statement differs, we should have to quote him thhtccn times, so we will let his figures slide. Now, what are the facts ? The English Commons — for the Lords cannot alter the amounts the Cammons fix — grants what it thinks best for the public service, and and among these grants there is one of HJOO,OOO, about .$300,000, to the Queen. That is all she can call her own out of all the grant 5 ,. That is all she can touch, and she is not indebted to the English people, even for that. "From the time of Alfred to that of Victoria, the English sovereigns wcte entitled to the revenues arising from the woods and forests. The title to these revenues was just as good as the Chronicles title to the building it occupies, or to being the premium crank of .San Francisco, arid this "nobody will deny." Now, Joseph Hume the executor to the Duke of Kent and the Queen's legal guardian before she came to the tin one, advised her to surrender these revenues to the people, and to depend only on the annual giant, from year to year, and the revenues of her own estate, the Duchy of Lancaster. She did so, and the revenues arising from the woods and forests have, for all these forty-four years', gone into the the public funds. The amount varies each year, but for the last half of 1881, and the estimated half of ISS2, it is £390,000, or abont ncaily as much as our contemporary's wildest dream, and more'by 51, 650,000 than the Commons gives to her personally. She has managed the Duchy of Lancaster well, and no doubt has saved ironcy, but she built her own house in the highlands of (Scotland hoiself, and she lias given her girls §500,000 apiece when they married. She cannot have a great deal of money left, and theie are plenty of men and women far richer than she is. «S. 7. Xnvs L/tfrr.