POLITICAL CAREERS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 284, 12 September 1938, Page 8

POLITICAL CAREERS

AMERICA AND ENGLAND. It’s better to be a Congressman in American than the equivalent—a Member of Parliament—in Britain, that is, from the financial point of view. But it is better to be a professional politician, or political executive, in Britain than if is in America. Let figures speak. In Britain a Member of Parliament gets £6OO. In America a member of Congress, which is American for M.P., gets a yearly wage of £2ooo—just a little matter of £I4OO more. But Britain pays her governmental executives better. For example, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gets £SOOO a year while the American Secretary of the Treasury has to struggle along On £3OOO. The American Congressman is better off than the British M.P. in other things besides salary. He gets “perks.” For instance, he can hire four clerks, paying them a total of £2160. As a member of certain foreign committees lie can hire others at a minimum salary of £516. He likewise gets three free offices, free telephone service, free shaves and haircuts, free mineral water, and an allowance for stationery of £25 a year —and immunity from arrest save for certain offences. In short, his job is a British M.P.’s paradise. But the position is reversed when it comes to the government chiefs. Apart from the divergence in the Chancellor’s and Treasury Secretary’s wages, America’s top-rate Ambassadors are paid only , a third of their British Ambassadorial colleagues’ income sometimes less. And the American Secretary for Commerce gets only £3OOO a year compared with the British Pitesident of the Board of Trade’s £SOOO.