Political Salaries.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19892, 1 April 1930, Page 10

Political Salaries.

Towards the end of last year Mr Ramsay Mac Donald, with the good will of the other Parties, appointed a Committee to consider the question of Ministers' salaries; and a cable message from London, printed to-day, states that the Committee recommends that the Prime Minister's salary should be increased from £SOOO to £BOOO annually, that the salaries of other Ministers should be increased by amounts, varying from £IOOO to £3OOO annually, and -that a salary' of £4OOO should- be provided for the Leader of the Opposition.- These proposals are not likely tp be opposed; not, at least, on the ground that they are extravagant. They are in fact quite moderate. It has long been evident that the Prime Minister's and other Ministers' salaries were too small to secure their possessors against financial difficulty and anxiety even while in office. Lord Oxford died a poor man; Mr Baldwin has admitted that for every pound he once had he now has only a shilling. As soon as they, left office Sir Austen Chamberlain and Sir Laming Worth-ington-Evans, two of Mr Baldwin's chief Ministers, felt it necessary to accept financial appointments in the City; and the question immediately arose, first whether they could effectively, play their part in opposition* second, and more important, whether they could easily break off their new obligations again to enter the next Conservative Cabinet Parliamentary careers must always be attended by some uncertainty, of course; but the uncertainty is now, from the financial point of view, intolerable, and brings within sight no small risk to the whole system of government. Anyone who hesitates at that can easily ask himself a different sort of question: whether a salary which was not too large for Pitt can be sufficient for the Prime Minister to-day. No important Minister has the slightest chance of engaging in the business or profession from which he rose. The duties of a great Department of State absorb the whole of even a giant's energy arid ability, and aH his time. The point has been reached when the most responsible service of the State impoverishes a man's fortunes, if-it do£B not wreck them; and this is disgraceful to the State, if not deterrent to all but impossibly generous and self-regardless character and power. The case of the ordinary member, as Thb Press has frequently pointed out, is different; it necessitates no such wholesale sacrifice, and there are very good reasons against making the career of the plain representative a form of comfortable livelihood. But Ministers in New Zealand are probably j paid too little, as in Great Britain they I Certainly are. According to the present scale, which was framed long ago when the value of money was greater, the British Prime Minister receives £SOOO, the Lord High Chancellor the Lord President of the Council £2OOO, the Lord Privy Seal £SOOO, the Chancellor of the Exchequer £SOOO, and the principal Secretaries of State £SOOO each, and lesser Ministers lesser sums. There are some very striking anomalies in the scale. A Prime Minister, whose duties have become much heavier during recent years, is a much harder worked man and much more vitally responsible than a Lord High Chancellor; yet the latter receives double the pay and a large superannuation when he leaves the Woolsack. Two other legal Ministers are also "most handsomely pro. vided for. The Attorney-General receives a salary of £7OOO and fees, whteh amounted to £18,968 in the year 1025-20. The Solicitor-General receives £6OOO and fees, which in the same year totalled £13,091. These men of course earn their money; but they are fortunate in being paid at a

rate commensurate with their services. In comparison the Prime Minister and others are grossly and scandalously underpaid, and even the increases now recommended are not lavish. But they mend what was a thoroughly bad and unjust situation.