Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1883 — What Kings Cost. [ARTICLE]

What Kings Cost.

It is interesting to compare the expense of maintaining a monarch on a throne, and that of supporting a President in the executive chair of a Republic. For many years the salary of the President of the United States was $25,000 a year. This sum, indeed, did not represent the entire cost to the country of the executive office. The White House was supported, to some extent, from the public purse; and there was sundry other sums spent on the President’s office. The salary of the President was raised to $50,000 a year during Gen. Grant’s term, and continues at that figure; and the whole expense to-day of the President’s office is probably something less than SIOO,000 yearly. The cost of Kingships in the various monarchies of Europe is much greater even in the smaller nations. The sovereigns, in the old days, used to spend pretty much what they pleased out of the public revenue. They were mostly absolute, and would impose taxes at will, and so raise an indefinite income for their own display and pleasures. This is still the case with the Czar of Russia, whose expenditures are never reported and cannot be estimated. The Sultan of Turkey, too, has power to raise all the taxes he can squeeze out of his impoverished and indolent subjects, and cannot be called to account for his spendings. But m all the other European monarchies the sovereign is restricted. Absolute despotism with them has been replaced by constitutional systems. The Emperor or King can only spend what is voted to him by the Parliament of Congress. A device new to this country, called the “Civil List,” has been adopted by nearly every monarchical country, and also by the French republic. The Civil List is designed to provide the sovereigns with a fixed income. It comprises a number of items, or heads of expenditure; and these are discussed and passed upon each year by the several legislative bodies. Of course, each sovereign has a greater or smaller private property of his own, as a , family inheritance, with which his subjects have nothing to do. The revenues he receives from the Civil List, therefore, are what might be called his salary in his public capacity, and by no means show what his entire income is.

The English Civil List, for instance, provides Queen Victoria with an income of about $2,000,000. But she has also a large private fortune, so that all her receipts for the year reach over $3,000,000. Germany provides the veteran Emperor William with a Civil List of about $3,000,000 ; which it must be difficult for a monarch so frugal and simple in his tastes and habits to get rid o. in the course of a year. His private property, moreover, adds at least a million to that vast sum. King Humbert of Italy’s Civil List is $3,080,003 a year, somewhat larger than that of the German Emperor; while young Alfonso of Spain has only about a million and a half, so impoverished are the people of his historic kingdom. The lesser nations are, of course, more economical. The sovereign of Denmark has a Civil List allowance of $225,000 a year; which, however, is at least three times what our President costs, and much more, if we consider the difference in population between Denmark and the United States. The King of Holland gets $300,000, and the King of Greece $220,000. Thus, it is evident that, without regard to any other aspect of the difference between monarchies and republics, at least the former is much the more costly luxury of the two to the masses of the people who have to pay the bills. —Youth’s Companion.