THE KING AND THE INCOME-TAX. T HE announcement that in the
new Civil List the King is to be relieved from the payment of Income-tax in return for taking upon himself the cost of entertaining the guests of the nation has been much and justly censured. It is based on a total misconception of the position and duties of the Sovereign, and, if we may judge from the example both of his father and his grandmother, of the King's own wishes. It has not had the benefit of the Leader of the Opposition's criticism, because his speech on July 22nd was rightly devoted to an exposition of the principles which underlie the provision made by the nation for the due maintenance of its hereditary head ; and unless Ministers should be wise at the eleventh hour, it will form a bad arrangement for the present and a worse precedent for the future. The arguments on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer rested his case seem to us to be singu- larly wanting in force. Mr. Lloyd George has not escaped the hard fate which condemns Radical poli- ticians to wear the hastily assumed garb of the courtier with a peculiarly ill grace. He defended his proposal by an argument which gave but a very slight support to one half of it, and was actually destructive of the other half. There is something to be said, he thinks, for relieving the Sovereign of the Income-tax, " for after all the Civil List is not a salary, but an allowance made to the Sovereign towards the maintenance of the dignity of the Crown. But what is the cost of State visits—the official intercourse between the King and foreign Royalties— if it be not incurred for the maintenance of the dignity of the Crown. They are not matters of personal pleasure. The King does not give or accept these invitations merely to relieve the dullness of his ordinary life. He could employ his time in ways far more agreeable than being either host or guest at State banquets and official receptions. He plays his part in them because they are one of the means by which he can minister to the good relations of his own and foreign countries. They supply opportunities of smoothing away, difficulties and removing misunderstandings. But these things are essentially a part of the Sovereign's public life, and as such they should be paid for out of the grant made to him for the conduct of that life. It is not at all a thing to be desired that State visits should be wholly withdrawn from the cognisance of the Foreign Secretary ; yet if the outlay incurred under this head does not come out of the Exchequer, what has the Foreign Secretary to do with them ? They will be part of the King's personal expenditure, and he can reduce or add to them at his pleasure. This was a matter of no import- ance under Queen Victoria. Her necessarily retired life reduced her public intercourse with other. Sovereigns to the lowest possible amount. Edward VII. made a great and beneficial change in this respect; and so long as European policy is determined to any appreciable extent by the personal character and wishes of the Sovereigns of the several countries, the interchange of Royal hospitalities must be counted among the methods by which Great Britain is enabled to influence that policy in the direction which seems to her to be best for the general interest. The Exchequer, rather than the Civil List, is therefore the source from which the cost of these hospitalities should be defrayed. The proposal that the King shall enjoy the allowance made to him free of Income-tax has, we admit, an air of plausibility about it which is wanting in the one we have been considering. That allowance, said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is either adequate or not adequate for its purpose. If you deduct the Income-tax, " it seems to be giving with one hand and taking away with the other." This is a singular argument in the mouth of a Finance Minister, since it might be used with equal force in the case of every paid servant of the Crown. In theory their incomes are given them in return for certain duties per- formed. What, then, can be the good. of giving them money from which Income-tax is at once to be deducted ? As, however, there is no reason to suppose that Mr. Lloyd George contemplates an extension to all Government officials of the principle which has governed him in framing the Civil List, he cannot even offer the poor excuse of consistency. In the case of the Sovereign, moreover, the proposal has a demerit special to itself. Its effect will be to make the King the one person in the-realm who has no part in the financial vicissitudes which directly or indirectly affect all his subjects. He alone will have no immediate knowledge how the demands made on the purse of every citizen wax or wane. His position, indeed, will still be so far assimilated to that of the working classes that he will have to pay more or less for the taxable articles consumed in his household. But the reduction of the duties on tea and sugar, or the- increase of those on tobacco and spirits, can make no appreciable- difference in the residue which he has to spend as he likes. In the absence of Income-tax he will not feel the varying needs of the State in his own person. It is from no doubt as to the patriotism and public spirit of King George V. that we say that any such severance between the Sovereign and his subjects would be greatly to be regretted. In finance, as in greater matters, if one member suffers the vehole body suffers also, and it is not well that this universal law should be suspended in the single case of the King. If, indeed, the Civil List were framed on the minutest possible calculation of every penny, there might be some slight plausibility in Mr. Lloyd George's reasoning. We have allowed, he- might say, for every particulfr of the Royal expenditure, and if we were to diminish the grant by a single penny the King would have - to run into debt to that precise amount. How, then, can we possibly ask him to pay Income-tax into the bargain ? Unfortunately for this argument, it is perfectly well known that the Civil List is not constructed on any such principle. ' The Sovereign is granted a round sum calculated on a liberal allowance for the various objects, foreseen and unforeseen, on which it will have to be spent. But the nation has not intended to leave him no freedom either in the selection of these objects, or in the apportionment of the money among them. There are some expenses which he must defray in their entirety out of the Civil List; there are others in which he has a choice,—items of personal expenditure which he can make larger or smaller at his . pleasure. It is upon this margin that the Income-tax makes the first demand in the case of his subjects, and we cannot think it either seemly in itself or likely to give satisfaction to the King that he should be the one man in the country upon whose income the public service makes no demand. It is not often our good. fortune to agree with our contemporary the Nation, but in this matter we can heartily go with it. " We thought," it said last week, " that the ruling idea of the Budget was that wealth and state should pay their quota to the community for the relief of its poverty and the maintenance of its defensive power. It would seem, therefore, that a contribution to these purposes was specially due from the greatest state of all, and from the head of the armed forces of the country, especially when it proceeds from that part of the King's public income which adds to his private enjoy- ments." We can imagine nothing more likely to feed that unreasoning criticism which no form of government can hope wholly to escape than the exemption of the Sovereign from a burden to which in one form or another every class in the community has to submit. It is one of those curious ironies in which party politics is so fertile that Mr. Lloyd George should be the Minister to make the proposal. One thing, however, we must say in reference to the change we wish to see made. It must be assumed that the - calculations of the Government in fixing the Civil List have not allowed so large a margin as would be needed to cover the very heavy demands made by an Income-tax of Is. 2d. in the pound and a Super-tax of 6d. If the sum it is now proposed to grant to the King is not more than adequate, all things considered, to the maintenance of his state and dignity when he has no Income-tax to pay, and for • ourselves we believe that it is not more than just adequate, then -it would-be less than adequate if that large deduction were made from it. - The proper course; therefore, would be to increase the Civil List by the difference between the figure at which it now stands and that at which it will stand after Income-tax at the present rate has been charged on it. The effect of this change would be to leave the King exactly in the position in which he now stands, but to vary that position in the future in accordance with the varying needs of the nation of which he is the head. We feel sure that no other arrangement could be so agreeable to King George V.
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