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With the principle that land or property that was gained unjustly in the past should not be retained by it's current owner? I don't think there's a state in the world that wouldn't have to give up large chunks of territory. Israel and the U.S especially.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
Israel may be tricky as there are probably many who would consider that to be perfectly just. The US is a better example. The thing is, by owning and selling and buying things you magically transform them into legitimate property. The crown lands, alas, were never really owned by the people holding the crown per se. Or were they? The argument being made in this thread is that they have always been owned in some way by the government, not necessarily just the current king or queen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
They were originally owned by William I by right of conquest. They were divided up agmonst various lackies in the true Fuedal Stylee. Their status becomes complicated. Then we get to 1760 and the events in the video happen. They currently exist neither as government property nor the personal property of the Windsors. They're owned as far as I can tell by the insistution of the monarchy.
'The monarchy' doesn't exist as an actual entity. I think you mean 'the monarch'. Which means that they belong to Elisabeth as we speak and that they will belong to Charles when he gets to be the king and then William. One might think that this means you simply inherit it, but their are two reasons to reject such a notion. The first would be that one can also lose ones claim to the crown estates by abdicating (Edward VIII) and second that they pass undivided from monarch to monarch. The same happens by the way to the Duchy of Cornwall and its estates (did they change the requirement for the Duke to be a man in their update of the rules of succession?)Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
@Loki, Congo is irrelevant as that is not the property of the King of the Belgians as we speak.
@Wiggin, they belong to the monarch not because he/she is the monarch but because the essence of the arrangement is that the state will pay for the upkeep of the monarch in return for the proceeds of the estate. The state would in the end loose on this deal if the agreement did not stipulate that the estate can't be divided by the individual who holds the current ownership rights. That means that their ownership is not some special privilege as you make it out to be but that it is actually burdened by a lien in order to guarantee the interests of the state.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
I'm not even getting into that argument - certainly there's a legal case nowadays that land taken *from a sovereign power* by right of conquest is not legally the land of the conquering country, though I think that law has not exactly been enforced very much. I would imagine this is different from a number of perspectives: for one, I'm not sure there was really a sovereign that lost in the Norman conquest - in fact, the modern idea of a nation didn't really exist back then, nor did the rules governing such things. Prior to the 20th century the right of conquest was pretty much enshrined in customary international law, and I'm not disputing that here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Regardless, my argument says nothing about whether the land still belongs to the sovereign state that descended from the Norman conquest. In fact, I specifically support the land being the property of that state, if nothing else because there's no one else to give it to and the state is a democracy, so it is more or less owned by the people. My issue is that it's ridiculous to suggest that land in the keeping of the sovereign power of the UK should stay with a bunch of now powerless people because they used to have a hereditary power over the region, rather than to the actual government which controls the country, and which grew organically out of the previous arrangement. This land is not, and never has been, personal property.
In my mind, they're owned by the sovereign power of the UK, meaning the actual government in charge, not the institution of the monarchy. Hell, I don't even know what the institution of the monarchy is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Oh, please, you might be able to make that argument back in the 18th century, but not today. The royals are completely powerless in this arrangement now, as indeed should be the case. I have no doubt that if Parliament wanted, they could figure out a way to stop paying a dime to the royals and keep the Crown estate to boot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
You have some crazy ideas about European monarchies. You totally ignore the fact that at the time of the agreement the role of the Monarch wasn't like anything you seem to think it was. And it hadn't been for a very long time for that matter. They were the owners of those lands because they were the owners at the time, not because they were the king. That particular obligation was added in the agreement between George III and Parliament.
The power of the British monarchy only really declined during the end of the George III's reign, in the second decade of the 19th century. Certainly the Bill of Rights in 1689 added some restrictions, but monarchs were very much involved in British politics - and exercised royal prerogative - in the 18th century.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
I find it curious that you have no issue with parliament routinely taking away powers from the monarch - such as the ability to dissolve parliament, which just happened in 2011 - but you are raising a big stink over them taking official property (NOT personal property) from the monarch.
I'm not sure why you are up in arms about this wiggin. Most everybody over there seems to like the arrangement and do NOT want to upset the status quo. 40 mil they pay the Royals pales in the value they get out of them. Win win, and makes them a little bit more unique than most of the rest of the world.
Honestly, Veldan, I don't care much what the Brits do with their monarchy. I just don't understand the absurd amount of attention people are paying to which powerless person sits in a fancy chair. The rest was just me responding to you and Hazir. ;) I question the widely held assumption that the royals pay for themselves, especially given the creative accounting in your posted video, and I would be happy to see all monarchies go the way of the dodo. But it's not like I'm personally invested in the outcome.
Magna Carta, Bill of Rights of 1689? I think it has been well established that absolutism was reined in well before George III was even born. Which also explains why this deal was struck; the king no longer could pay the expenses of being the king.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
I think the principle of ownership is too important to toy with just because you don't like the system of government a person stands for.
The principle of ownership has nothing to do with state property. Full stop.
(Also, I never implied George III had absolute powers, just that he had a lot of leverage over parliament. Regardless, I recognize that the deal he struck was part of the slow process of the monarch becoming a figurehead that proceeded well into the 19th century. I just see the face-saving wheeze they made up - that Parliament was 'paying' the Crown for lands they could probably get anyways once the process was complete - had less to do with the legalities and more to do with preserving the idea of a sovereign monarch.)
It is not state property and it never has been state property. It is also far from aiding the preservation of the idea of a sovereign monarch; quite to the contrary. It must be something American that you think that something isn't relevant any longer because it's too old.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
It was half a century ago. Do you think that was a legitimate form of ownership? What do you think about the Hapsburgs reclaiming their personal possessions in Istria? The reality is that no one seriously accepts that monarchs have real ownership of substantial lands since the end of absolute monarchy. The only exception was for non-Western territories, and even that's no longer allowed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
I'm with Hazir on this.
And I'll add the modifier that there are three sides to property ownership; legality, physical control and claim. The King of Belgium/Saxe-Coburg-Gotha doesn't have any control over the Congo nor does he claim anything of the sort, so I don't see how it's relevant.
The British Monarchy controls Crown lands and plays a legally-defined (if quasi-ceremonial) role in the state. We can talk all we want about seizing crown lands, but it doesn't really make it any less of a property seizure to me. And I think that would be wrong, no matter how many people vote for it.
So when the King of Belgium did have troops in the Congo and claimed ownership of the Congo (recognized by most countries), you would say that he had legal ownership of the place?
As for physical control: that could be easily rectified by taking the territory from the monarch's control...
Okay, let's imagine that the Brits eliminated the monarchy as having even a ceremonial role in government. They said they can still call themselves king or whatever, but that it will have absolutely nothing to do with power or governing. Who do you think should then control the Crown estate? What about the Crown jewels?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
I believe it should belong to the properly constituted sovereign power in the UK, which would be the government in the absence of a monarch. As such, quibbling over matters of degree is irrelevant - fundamentally, the land is not personal property but tied to sovereignty. You can argue that the Crown currently has technical control over it, but it's certainly not unreasonable to suggest that the UK government - whether led by a monarch pro forma or not - fundamentally has rights to that land, so no favors are being done. The real favor to the monarch, depending on how you calculate it, is worth upwards of $200 million a year. And that's in a good year, without jubilees and weddings and whatever else.
The agreement to exchange Crown Estate profits for the Civil List is renewed verbally by each new monarch. A newly crowned King Chuck could quite easily refuse to do so, and cause a constitutional crisis in the process. In the event of a Republic, the entity of the Crown would not cease to exist, for Queen Queenie would still be head of states of several other commonwealth realms, including Canadia and Australia and - if it was independent at this point - Scotland. The idea that it would simply default to the new state is highly dubious. At most it would be spun off into an independent corporation in which the Windsors may or may not have some kind of controlling stake.
I think it's irrelevant if they're still monarchs of other places; the Crown estates are in the UK (as are the jewels, the artwork, etc.). If there are crown lands in other countries, those countries are free to them as far as I'm concerned.
So you would, what, grant states the right to seize any land in their jurisdiction? Don't understand where you're coming from with this.
Actually, they already can, it's called eminent domain. You just need to provide some justification and compensation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
But no, that's not at all what I'm saying. Crown estates are not personal property. They're state property. When the state was embodied by the monarch, great. Now that it isn't, they rightfully belong to the duly constituted government.
I should note that even though British law probably doesn't think Crown estates are state property in the way I do, they most definitely don't think they are personal property either.
Isn't there a continued and heated dispute about who "owns" Greek antiquities displayed in British museums?
Er and what's the price of strawberries in Peru?
They are not state property.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
What are they, then?
Property of the Crown.
Wiggin, I think you're thinking about this like an American. Like someone in a powdered wig just sat down with a quill and worked it all out one day. It's not like that at all. We've just been making it up as we go along for the past thousand years. Entities like the "the Crown Estates" simply don't fit onto one side or another between state property and private property. They are not the personal property of the monarch. They are not the property of the government or the state, either.
If it were 1890 and I was a Belgian, I would probably say yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I didn't realize until skimming above my post that the role of dissolving government no longer rests with the Queen as of recently. :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
But...
This is a very important point that people seem to be missing. The monarchy didn't just spring-up overnight and proclaim its dominion over a God-fearing democracy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Am I correct in my understanding that, hundreds of years ago, the British monarch was personally responsible for providing various services that are now paid for by the government as a whole? And that, because their responsibility was personal, any debts they incurred in the provision of these services were also personal? That they paid for these services with the income from the crown estates?
What services would these be?