1957-08-10 — Page 5

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1957.

SHOULD THE QUEEN HAVE TO SPEND

HER OWN MONEY?

AT a time when the inflation season is at its height, on a day when Mr Thorny.

croft is counting off the cherry-stories to discover what industry, the next wage claim is coming from, in a summer when even the seaside postcards about broad- beamed ladies are filed with jokes on the cost-of-living, I turn your attention to the most remarkable inflation problem of them .

A problem which up to now has been confined to the whisperers.

The problem which faces. her Majesty the Queen. The age-old royal problem of expenses exceeding income,

HER WORRIES

LET 19

ALD what that problem means,

Up and down the country politicians are talking of the difficulties of the families with axed incomes. Yet of all those incomes none is so strangely and rigidly fixed as the Income of the Royal Family.

by ROBERT PITMAN

and Queens of the eighteenth century, lived in a perpetual Bagging money crisis the kind of crisis which forced them at times to let their state rooms go shabby aml to keep servants sometimes months behind with wages.

their

DWINDLING.....

central

#e And remember

Every icercase has to be feet. net from aut inecanic watch was circumstances of 1962.

xed for The Queen Se 153

Today, after the glittering Channel falands tour, the Qucen is enjoying a quie: Sunday, free from receptions

and hard- shakings, in the company of her children. But at the back of her mind murt lie the kind of claud which hangs over the chairman of some great buzinabs when he know that it is slowly striking

IN June 1952 the Queen's into debt,

Income Wus fixed ut

At the beginning of every £475,000. An amazing reign a committeo settles income. But one which has the royal income. Not for dwindled in value at มุม

a

THEIR TRY

few years. For the amazing rate. Already YET (1 will be said) surely

Sovereign's whole life.

What a fantastic urrunge

ment that is!

Every business mun knows what it would mean if he had to pay out today's wages without being allow- ed to increase his prices beyond the 1952 level.

IT WOULD MEAN DIGGING INTO SAV- INGS. IT WOULD MEAN PERPETUAL CRISIS.

estimate that - at 1982 values it has dropped to £400,000.

And all the time the out. goings have increased. The royal tours, the entertain ment of Empire lenders, the upkeep of royal-parks all are growing charges on the Queen's income.

The food bil of the royal household alone--in George VI's reign went up from £18,000 in 1946 to 128,000 in 1951.

And that, 1 believe, is exactly what it means for the Queen today. Just her ancestors, the Kings thon.

:

*

*

*

as

Just imagine how that ringle iters must have swoilen since

*

★

the House of Commons committee knew all about cost- of-living problems

For her subjects a smile from the Queen on the great pubile occasions. But, at the back of her mind, are there misgivings about the mounting bilis of the panoply of state?

in 1052; an annual sum of £475,000-an sarply it tried to free the young increase of 265,000 on the Civil Queen from mich worries? Cer- List of her father, George V. tainly it did.

In addition, the committee also arranged for the Queen's husband to have his Own separate income cf £40,000 yearly from the State,

Throughout May and June of that year a commitice of 22 M.Ps at ecmbing through ac stunts in order to dreide how much the Queen

allotted.

should be

Was

The committee

not entirely composed of the sort of copie one usually associates

Paltre. 21

with Buckingham Included Mrs Cultes, the

Secialist MP. from the Gerbals, It even included Mr Michael Foot.

That committee recommended to paid that the Queen should

Letter from a

ON

Cow

N behalf all the cows in Britain I weak-minded husband than us, his less

cannot protest too strongly against glamorised, over-worked wives.

the proposal that the Milk Publicity And for the benefit of editors and Council should use "glamorised cows" on some town people who may not appreciate the hoardings in place of the drink-more- that herds of cows have only one husband milk girl-Zoe Newton.

between the lot of them I wish to slate that any additional competitions such as

It is stated that a branch of the glamorised cows" on hoardings would Housewives' League hus wald: "Let's publicise the animals that produce the be most unwelcome.

milk. We breed the finest cows in the We would remind the Milk Publicity world," and added that they (the wives) Council that if they go ahead with this did not think Zoe Newton was attractive new line in advertising they will not only and nor did their husbands.

be doing us a great disservice but will also be doing themselves one.

Which is just a lot of bull's eye.

For even they must realise that the The real reason they want Zoe off the milk yield from a "glamorised cow" on a hoardings is because they know very few hoarding is pretty low, and ours will he husbands drink milk, and that wistful just about as low it our husbands' expression as they gaze starry-eyed at the affections are to be tured away by these posters is for Zoo Newton and not the painted, paper dolls. product she is tempting you to buy.

We fully sympathise with the House- wives' League's concern that Miss Newton Is Inadvertently stealing their husbands' affections, but must remind them that if pictures of "glamorised cows" are to be used instead, we shall be faced with the same concern as the Housewives' League.

A "glamorised cow" on a hoarding is bound to prove more attractive to our

Yours,

A. SHORTHORE

drink

more

milk-

M.MB.aid.

The committee mede this in- crease precisely because I knew how heavily George VI had been hit by inflation.

ECONOMIES

TAKE are example.

By the end of his reign the King had made ecunonies every where. He had reduged his staff by 100, Yet, since he came to the Throne, his bill for salaries and wuges had Incressed by ; £50,000 a year.

price variations for perhaps halt

a century,

PRIVATE MONEY

#THEN how will the Queen manage ins tha coming months?

TH

Well, like her father, always draw on the which she inherited.

the can fortune

No one knows how much that fortune amounts u For royal wills are never published.

of his reign.

But that still eft the King savings of clmast £200,000 at his death; quite apart from any Private plasëselens or in-

cond whatever.

y: let us sadde that the Queen inherited all this and more.

Let us add the princely bequests which she is sald to havo received from her grandmother, Queen Mary, and which certainly Includ- ed a private collectoin of jewels of startling võlus. Let 125 add her family's usique atomp collection

(worth many hundred thou- sand) and, with many other Personal gifts, the Limazing 54-caral diamond--a fortuna In itself-wihrh was her wedding gift from the dia- mond nilitonuke John Wil- Hamron. Let us even accept an American estimate that her personal furtune may amount to over £3,000,000.

The income from this for- tune, unlike her Stato in- come, is fully subject to Lax. But of course, It may be that much of her capital has been shrewdly invested, which means that inflation will have increased It con- siderably.

EVEN SO, SHOULD WE STILL EXPECT THE QUEEN TO SUBSIDISE FOR THE REST OF HER REIGN THE GREAT STATE ENTER. PRISE

oF MODERN ROYALTY?

I do not believe so. For sure. ly it we accept the principle of monarchy at all, we must also Beeept the principle that the State should разу dor the functions it asks the monarchy to undertake.

There can be no argument for

the Queen-no suggesting that matter how wealthy she should keep the machinery State going by paymente from

It is sometimes said that the Duke of Windsor. as Edward her own pocket, VII, inherited at least a million pounds from his father.

Further, it is said that the handed Duke, on Abdication, over this fortune to his brother. George VI, in return for a year- ly income.

The result was harsh. In the last five years of his life-while But there are others who deng Il-health gradustly set in, while that George VI received ony- statesman from abroad came thing from his brother beyond and went at the Palace, while the Crown and the two private the great pence-time cycle ef estates of Sandringham вла royal engagements got under Balmoral. way again the King had 10 supplement the

many voled

Nevertheless, there can be na

THE SOLUTION

E/HAT then can be done?-

1s

of

Let us return to that fad- ing pamphlet, the report drawn up by the 22 MPs in 1952.

There they suggested that If. their income arrangetnents broke down, the Queen could always come to Parliament again, and ask for a new committee and a now report,

But is that really the proper solution? Would it not be hlm by Parlament with doubt that even he began

better-better oven than asking £150,000 from his own private with no more than the resources

for contributiona from the purse.

of a younger son-George VI

to follow tho must have left a corsiderable Dominions - When the M.P.& looked over fortune to his daughter,

example set by the small mon- archy of Denmark? There the these harsh facts in 1952 they

I have mentioned the King's king's Income from the State for did more than increase the royal

modest Income. They specially included expenses in the last year of personal spending is

iire. But for him these enough. Bul, ke the incomes In that income the amount of his

of Danish clvil servants, It 19 £70,000 yearly (to be returned last expensive years were more

the savings tied to the cost of living. each year to the State if not re- than balanced by

For our own Queen that Is quied) in order to meet cost-of- which war economies forced on living problems.

him. For in the war years there surely the moderű answer to an wore no lavish banquets, no, historie problemn.

In their reports the M.Pa glitering fours. Yet he still i called this "some measure of reprived his fixed income from safeguard against any further Parliament which was arranged prices at the beginning of his reign

in 1937.

increases in costs and

during the reign.."

from

During the Teign. How As a result, by 1045 he had ironical those words sound 10- actually saved £440,000 day! For we know that already, his official income. Of this he In the Afth year of the reign, paid back £100,000 as a volun- rising prices have swept serose tary gift to the Treasury in 1940. the enfire margin of £70,000 And, of course, he had to pro- the margins which the M.Ps vide that extra £150,000-to meet pland would stand out against unpaid bills in the last ilve years

This Milky Isle

HK: This

By Joyce England

was

While England pours surplus He revealed that milk milk onto fields and makes white supplied to Service schools by Jake of buttermilk, and a Go- the War Office, but not to other verament that has to pay the rehodis in the Colony. damage pleads with the publle

to "drluk more milk"....Hong- As for soya milic... I tried a kong is becoming an ingreass bottle at a woyside stall and ingly milky island, though not soon had en audience. through a boostor campaign.

"Makes you good" cold Mk drinking is up another a friendly observer patting his 20 percent his year,

the chest.

Kowloon Dairy. And the Dairy

"Chinese people like It", he

Farm are producing and selling volunteered,

u mansive 37,000 bottles of tresh

milk per day and 20,000 botiles

<1 "Blue Saa!" - reconstituted; milic.

COFTW

Soya-nog

Soya milk swells the general milk round, and served diot, is replacing congee as the favour-| Ste midnight suck at street You can try it next or eggmor at 3 am, any morning on Blake Pier. And coya milk junkot ja ane of the most comuYON freet Corner macks by day.

A spokesman of the Kowloon Dalry said that their Chinose CustomOTO WOre beginning to realise that milk is a "good thing", but did not yet-take as much as they could," and Gov- ernment regulations binderadi rather than hotped milk anjes.

ANTIE.

“She's been shas way ever africe she posed for a miķ

:

THIS is the Gim

GORDONS

DRY GIN

TO MEN MAJRITY THE DATA FE DISTILLAS SASTANKE STAPHA BOLES

Quality Incomparable

Gordon's

Stands Supremes

Solo Distributor;

DODWELL & COMPANY LIMITED.

DOMINATING

the five NEW

Leica

1118

LATEST DESIGNS WITH IMPROVED FEATURES

Sula Duter

UNIVERSAL MERCANTILE CO., LTD.

HK 5. Ilang lang

867

172502-36

Now!

TOKYO

TAIPEI Zvery u

TAIPEI

HONG

every Tuesday, Friday and 31

#O ĂN G K ONG AIRWAYS

JET-PROP VISCOUNT

Consult your travel agent or Hong Kong Airways Limited, Tel, 64368 (24 hr. usrvice).

•®¿©«A»G« [[AJANRINK „ENTERPRISE:

Page 5Page 6