A VICEROY'S EXPENSES

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 260, 2 November 1935, Page 19

A VICEROY'S EXPENSES

HEAVY SACRIFICE. ENTERTAINMENT COSTS. LONDON, September 30. When Lord Linlithgow takes over one of the xdost strenuous, worrying and responsible offices ill the British Empire —the Viceroy of India—he will make a heavy financial sacrifice.

The annual salary of a Viceroy 3s about £19,000 —hopelessly inadequate, for the expenses of the oflice swallow it up, with a good deal more. He has to live on a scale that would astonish the average man. It js necessary to keep up not only regal state, but the eastern idea of regal state.

There is no doubt that in the next few years the constant conferences with the princes and others over the changes in the Constitution of India will make the entertaining expenses enormous. Lord Linlithgow is a director of seven important concerns. Although lie is not bound to give up his directorships, the nature of his duties in India and the fact that he has to remain there for five years make it practically impossible for him to retain them. Ever since he was a young, man the new Viceroy has given much of his .time to public work, and be has been chairman or member of dozens of committees and commissions. His father, when Governor-General of Australia from 1900 to 1902, resigned because the salary of £10,000 a year was not "suitable" to the office. He said that in the two years in which he held the office he had had to spend well over £20,000 of Lis own money on entertaining. The whole question of remuneration for British State service may be reviewed in the near future. It is felt that it may not always be possible to get fcUe best man for a job if there is a heavy financial loss involved. This inadequacy of salary is also true of the other high posts in the Government. Ministers' salaries will also be included in the review. A select committee, reporting in 1930, recommended that the Prime Minister's salary should be increased from £5000 to £7000 a year. The report assessed the "minimum annual sum required to meet extra expenditure"—the annual loss to the holder of the office—at £2000. The salary, however, remains unchanged.