The statement made in the Times that the pageant to
be held at Delhi to celebrate the proclamation of the Queen as Empress of India will cost half a million is officially denied. The amount to be expended will not exceed 1125,000, the Government having no intention of paying the expenses of the Native Princes who may attend. This amount is not an unreasonable one, though the use of any ceremonial at all is not quite apparent ; but the Government does not state that it will provide for the concentra- tion of *flops which is intended, and which will cost as much as a small campaign. We trust advantage will be taken of the oppor-
tunity to determine once na the _place of each Prince in the Indian Peerage, and so avoid the ceremonial atin0-.14A.,..
every Durbar drive the Foreign Secretary nearly crazy. It is too late, we suppose, to introduce the principle of date of enthrone- ment as the claim to precedence, for that is the only one which, being at once unalterable and accidental, creates no bitterness.
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