ere
voted as required. Upon their surrender to the nation (during the life
of each Sovereign) it has become the custom, since 1868, to vote a
permanent Civil List for the ensuing reign and out of this sum the
ordinary Court and personal expenses are supposed to be met. In the case
of Queen Victoria the amount was L385,000 a year, supplemented, however,
by other votes and special allowances to herself and the Royal family
from time to time.

Upon her accession the Queen retained out of the old Crown Lands, or
revenues, those of the Duchy of Lancaster and they have risen in value
from L20,000 to L50,000 per annum. The Royal palaces are maintained
apart from the Civil List and the building of Royal yachts and other
similar expenses are considered as additional items. The revenues of the
Duchy of Cornwall, which have always pertained to the Prince of Wales,
and the incomes or special sums voted to the members of the Royal
family, make up an amount nearly as large as the Civil List. But these
apparently large sums have not in recent years created any feeling of
dissatisfaction; nor has any been expressed save by certain individuals
of the Labouchere type, who possess little influence and less sincerity.
Upon the whole the situation in this connection possesses considerable
interest to the student of history, or of popular sentiment, as showing
how a practical, business-loving, money-making people can become devoted
to an institution which must in the nature of things be expensive and
which, in the ratio of its dignity and effectiveness as an embodiment of
growing national power, must be increasingly so as the years roll on.

The reason for this condition of feeling is the combination which the
Monarchy has during the past century come to present to the minds of the
public. Tradition and history reaching down into the hearts and lives of
the people may be considered the basic influence; a general belief in
the superiority of British institutions over all others may be stated as
a powerful conservative force; while personality and character in the
Sovereign may be described as the chief constructive element in this
process of increasing loyalty to the Crown. Convenience, custom, love of
ceremony, belief in stability and aversion to change, are lesser factors
which may be mentioned. The result is that Mr. George W. Smalley, for so
many years the American correspondent of the New York _Tribune_ in
London, could write recently i