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Show Marquis Child's British poods Influx May Bring Aid Cut WASHINGTON The Immediate Imme-diate rmilu of th devaluation of the Biitlah pound and the currencies of th rest of Europe can be aeen in the department tore advertisements. They announce an-nounce reductioni on china, gloves, woolens the specialties that Britain and Europe want to end Into this country in order, to earn a few more dollar. But those specialties are also made In this country. The manufacturers man-ufacturers of woolens and china have powerful lobbyists In Washington. Some of those lobbyists are right In the congress con-gress Itself. The new competition in price may well bring a stiffening of the opposition to European aid which subsidises the European producer so that he can compete com-pete In the American market. It la easy too easy to assume that Russia's atomic explosion haa swept away all this opposition opposi-tion and that now members of congress will unhesitatingly stand up and do their duty in the face of the three t to civillza-i civillza-i Men. Coat of Royalty Belf-liitemt U nut sn readily set aside even in the face of the dictates of overwhelming logic. And the same thing la true of prejudice. A remarkable number num-ber of letters have come to me commenting on the statement In this space that whatever the British paid to maintain their royal family It was no business busi-ness of ours. Incidentally, In that other column col-umn I did not give the whole picture of the cost of British royalty. While It Is true that the government In London appropriates ap-propriates for the royal household house-hold and various members of the royal family 12.188,000, this la made up for many times over In revenue from the royal estate. The House of Windsor ha great Inherited wealth, much of It put together by shrewd, canny Queen Victoria. Under an agreement agree-ment between the government and the present king all of that revenue goes Into the British treasury. ' This Include the Income returned re-turned by the Duchy of Cornwall, Corn-wall, which usually goes to the Prince of Wales. As there is today no Prince of Wales, this la "vested In the monarch." In the fiscal year 1947-48 the government gov-ernment got from the crown nearly 14,000,000 more than the amount appropriated for royalty. royal-ty. Yanks Boy Feed These facta probably win not alter the opinion of some of my more vociferous correspondents. The following Is typical: "I think It la very much our business Inasmuch as we are asked to pay a very large part of the amount spent by royalty In addition to the billions we are giving tham. If that la not any of our business, then nothing they do la our business." That happens, of course, to be Incorrect. American dollars do not go to pay Internal costs of the British government. They go primarily to pay for the importation im-portation Into England of food and raw materials essential to maintain British production and to keep British workers and their families aUve and healthy. I suppose that if the members of the British royal family ever found themselves out of Jobs, they could retire to one or the other of the farms they own and live more comfortably than most of their countrymen. Tourists Fete Royalty . One correspondent who took pains to point out his Irish name, expressed Indignation that any American should presume to question the cost of Britain's royal family. Assailing thia "pawnbrokenng" attitude, he said: "What about the coat of an the phony kings and queens we support? The veiled prophet queen In St Louis, the Mardl Ores queen in New Orleans and whatever the name of that queen la they elect out In Omaha; the prune queen, diaper week queen and so on ? If the British fired the royal family, we'd hire 'em a new one so our top brass snobs could have them to be Introduced Intro-duced to at court levies." In many Americans, even though we don't admlt.lt there la a sneaking admiration, perhaps per-haps even envy, for the pomp and circumstance of the daya when Britain's royal family ride In splendor through London's Lon-don's streets. As one Britisher wryly pointed out the number of American tourists gathered every day around the gates of Buckingham palace In the tourist tour-ist season should persuade the film companies to provide a subsidy sub-sidy for royalty. In a time ef swift and kaleidoscopic kaleido-scopic change, the ancient symbols, sym-bols, evea though they may have lost much of their old meaning, give a sense of continuity and of the vitality of traditional values. But self-interest In a highly competitive world is something else again. The American manufacturer man-ufacturer who feels that the taxes he pays are going to subsidise sub-sidise the success of a competitor competi-tor la likely to do all he can to see that that subsidy is stopped. Copyright 1949. by United Feature Syndicate |