The Times has been authorised to contradict the statements which
have been for some time in circulation, but which have of late been repeated aloud with much circumstantial detail in the World, and several foreign journals, on the subject of the debts of the Prince of Wales. It was stated that they amounted to £600,000. It was stated that Mr. Gladstone had been applied to, to propose their payment to Parliament, but had refused. It was stated that at last the Queen had paid them. All these statements are denied. It is affirmed that the Prince is not, so to speak, in debt at all ; that there is no mystery or concealment as to his affairs, his accounts having been regularly audited since he came of age, in 1862 ; that the unpaid claims before his Controller amount to little more than a third of his annual income, and will be more than met by the balances to his credit on the 1st of October ; finally, that with the exception of one or two accounts unsettled from peculiar circumstances, there is no bill on the list of more than one year's standing. It is, however, admitted that the Prince has only been able to main- tain the establishment which the Queen's long relinquishment of the more costly duties of Royalty has imposed upon him, by gradually destroying one of the principal sources of his income, the fund accumulated during his minority from the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall. Of this fund, from £10,000 to £20,000, it is confessed, are sold every year, to meet the deficiency in his Royal Highness's income ; and of course, if his expenditure must be maintained at its present rate, every year more and more capital must be sacrificed. It is obvious how this will end, and that Parliament must one day be applied to ; but Parliament consists of three Estates, and the Commons should only be asked to interfere in the last resort.
