RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 153, 25 March 1937, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events (By Kickshaws. - ) It looks as if it is going to require more than that African sandstorm to throw dust in lhe world's eyes about the Duce’s romance. * * * The juice of a South American plant, it is stated, has the power to make one see visions of things that, could never happen. It will never supersede the cinema. « * » Tlie farmer, if we are to believe a speaker, never knows hunger or unemployment. More correctly, it is the farmer's wife who never knows unemployment. and that is why the farmer never knows hunger.

Few can deny that a Prime Minister of England is more nearly worth £lO,000 a year than the £5OOO that it lias been the custom to pay for the last 110 years. It comes as a greater surprise, however, when one discovers that tlie Prime Minister of England gets no salary, and never has. Actually, he got liis £5OOO a year for doing nothing. The post for which this salary is paid. First Lord of tlie Treasury, is a sinecure office with no work attached to it. If one did not live in a world of topsy-turvy, common sense would suggest' that the latter post lie abolished amt tlie Prime Alinister of England be paid for his work. At any rate, now that lie is to have his salary doubled, lie will lx? in the position of earning considerably less than Grade Fields, or the man who used to propose his and other toasts at banquets. But rattier more than the President of Chile, who has to content himself with a very modest £7OO a year, which incidentally, is the salary paid to the French Premier.

One may indeed argue that the salary of £lO,OOO a year for the Prime Minister of England is princely, compared witii some equivalent remunerations with which other countries solace their leading politicians. Across the Channel there is one flat rate for Cabinet rank. It works out at about £7OO a year. The French under-secretaries receive half that sum. compared with tlie £lOOO to £2OOO a year paid to their British counterparts. In Germany the scale of Ministerial salaries is higher than in France, but below tlie British scale. The Reich Ministers, 10 in number, receive the equivalent of £2OOO a year. Under-secretaries are paid about £l2OO a year. Although official salaries have been doubled in Italy, even so, lower rates prevail. Each of the 13 Ministers receives about £9OO a year. Their 13 under-seeretaries receive half the pay of their superiors. Moreover, the Italian Exchequer benefits from the energies of their Premier. The Duce is at the head of at least seven ministries, but he is content to draw the pay for only a single office.

The United States of America deals generously with her legislators. Not onlv do the ten Cabinet Ministers receive £3OOO a year, but their undersecretaries are paid £l5OO a year. Moreover, Senators as well as members of the House of Representatives are paid tlie princely sum of £2OOO a year. With this addition members of the American executive have been as veil off as their counterparts in Britain. In spite of the £lO,OOO a year that a Prime Minister of England is to receive, it is probable that very little will be left over when tlie year is over. There is. for example, nearly £2OOO ro be put aside for income and super tax. The house in Downing Street, which custom compels him to occupy is very inconvenient and expensive. Moreover, out of his salary he has to pay for entertaining that cannot be classified as “official functions.”

The truth about some of the huge salaries that are paid important official positions is that the holders in reality are paying to work. Tlie £BOOO a year that many an ambassador receives fails to cover the expenses of a magnificent embassy. At one famous European Court the British Ambassador found that he had to provide anything from £lO,OOO to £20,000 from his own pocket. Indeed, no American could afford to become Ambassador in London unless he were able to find at least that sum of money privately. Many have spent more. It seems absurd, but the worst thing that could happen to the average Londoner would be to become Lord Mayor. The expenses of office outweigh the official income of some £12,000 a year by as much again. Several of London’s Lord Mayors have completed their term in office financially embarrassed. In the case of some of the higher legal official positions, the occupant in many cases has to renounce a private income, derived from his professional skill, of £25,000 a year to take up a post worth about £BOOO a year.

For some curious reason an adoring public sees fit to pay its prizefighters and producers of mirth and melody sums of money greatly in excess of what they provide for their diplomats. One ex-waiter who turned gigolo found that by providing a dance partner to 'moly women he was able to earn as much as the Prime Minister of England. busy finding partners for the dance in Europe. There are many prizefighters who have made in a few minutes more than enough money to keep them for the rest of their lives on a super-ministerial salary. If one were to place people in order of importance as decided by their earning capacity, the President of tlie United States of America conies many thousands of pounds below his galaxy of film stars, his baseball top-notebers. bis darling pugilists, and bis leading lawyers and ex-rum runners. He comes a very long way down the list compared with the individuals who produce the steel for his country and those who make the rouge witli which his womenfolk cover their lips.

"I am enlisting your help to explain the answer to a problem.” says “II. ’’ “The problem is quite an old one, but I must repeat it to make my point. The trustee to an estate had to divide 17 horses to A, B. and C in the proportion of one-half, one-third, one-ninth. To do this lie borrows one horse (making a total of 18 horses) —gives A nine horses, B six horses, and C two horses. This makes a total of 17. and one horse over; he now returns tlie borrowed horse nnd everyone is happy—except me. who cannot explain this apparent anomaly. Can you please explain to me where tlie fallacy occurs?”

[The problem asks for the horses to be divided in the proportion of the fractions mentioned. This proportion works out in round figures as 9; 6: 2. The whole is, therefore, 17, and the fraction of the 17 horses that A, B. ami G receive is nine-seventeenths, six-seven-teenths, and two-seventeenths: or 9. 6, and 2 horses. By adding one more horse it is possible in this case to give one-half of them to A. and so on in the same proportion as 9. 6. 2. but it i« more good luck than good mathematics that the problem may be solved in this way.]