"More than once," said a leading article in "The Times" of January 12th, 1898, "it has been seriously proposed to pull the whole building down, and to deal otherwise with the land, and Her Majesty's subjects ought to be grateful to her for having strenuously resisted such an act of Vandalism, and for having declared that, while she lived, the palace in which she was born should not be destroyed." =Restoration of the State Rooms.= The Queen, it is believed, had long desired that her people's wish to be admitted to inspect the Palace of her ancestors, and her own birthplace and early home, should be gratified; and it seemed a fitting memorial of the Diamond Jubilee that this should be done. An obdurate Treasury, which, as we have hinted, had looked forward rather to demolition than restoration, was at length induced to recommend the expenditure necessary to prepare the State Rooms for the admission of the public, and thus, on the 11th of January, 1898, it was possible to make the following gratifying announcement in the press: "Her Majesty, in her desire to gratify the wishes of Her people, has directed that the State Rooms at Kensington Palace, in the central part of the building, which have been closed and unoccupied since 1760, together with Sir Christopher Wren's Banqueting Room, attached to the Palace, shall after careful restoration be opened to the public, during her pleasure; and the Government will forthwith submit to Parliament an estimate of the cost of restoration." Accordingly the Board of Works proceeded to prepare estimates and on March 4th following, the First Commissioner, Mr. Akers Douglas, M.P., submitted a vote of £23,000 for the purpose. By a unanimous vote of the House of Commons on April 1st, the amount required was at once agreed to, and great gratification was on all sides expressed that so happy solution had at length been arrived at. Forthwith, the restorations were put in hand--the most pressing repairs having, indeed, been begun in anticipation, previous to the passing of the vote--and for many months they consisted entirely in solid structural works, which scarcely seemed to affect the appearance of the building at all. It was found necessary to rebuild and underpin walls, to reslate practically the whole of the roof over the State Apartments and renew the timbers that carried it; and also almost all the floors. After these heavy works, and those consequent on the installation of the hot-water warming apparatus, were completed, the more interesting, but much more difficult, business involved in the restoration of the old decorative ironwork, woodwork, and paintings of the State Rooms was taken in hand.