Royal Raise

Britain's royal family was about to get a raise. A special parliamentary committee appointed to draw up a Civil List for the reign of Elizabeth II last week recommended an increase of $182,000 a year over George VI's allowance of $1,148,000. Even so, Elizabeth II* will be getting much less than her great-grandfather, Edward VII, did back in 1901 when the pound was worth three times as much.

Food bills at the various castles and palaces are up by $27,000 over 1937. The household staffs have been cut by 100 servants, but wages have nevertheless risen $140,000 over what George once paid. The annual laundry bill is $4,300 higher. One happy item: royal automobile upkeep is down, because Elizabeth's husband, Philip, does a good deal of the driving himself. (Philip's personal allowance was set at $112,000 a year, four times what he previously got.)

Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall, was awarded one-ninth of the revenue of his Duchy of Cornwall (approximately $20,000) until he reaches the age of 18, when he will get even more. Princess Margaret will get $16,800 annually until she gets married. Princess Anne, and any other children the Queen may bear, will get nothing until they have reached 21.

The size of the royal budget, even after all the explanations, shocked Britons. Two Socialists, characteristically pinch-penny with non-Socialist expenditures, proposed to slice the Queen's personal allowance almost in two, and to knock $84,000 off the Duke of Edinburgh's funds.

The egalitarian Manchester Guardian did not mind money spent on public pageantry but thought there might be less royal money wasted on levees based on "social differentiation and caste exclusiveness. These we can dispense with unless we choose to continue presentations at Court for the sake of eager debutantes from the great American democracy . . . The main thing is to make the monarchy a more popular institution by relying on affection rather than on formality or display."

*Who in Edinburgh last week noted that a prize cup she was presenting to a member of the Royal Company of Archers was engraved "presented by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth." Annoyed, the Queen ordered the cup returned to jewelers for addition of the Roman numeral II after her name. Many a Scot points out that Elizabeth I was Queen of England, but not Queen of Scotland.

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