MINISTERIAL SALARIES

Evening Star, Issue 18160, 28 December 1922, Page 2

MINISTERIAL SALARIES

LORD CHANCELLOR OVERPAID. The Bonar Law Government, being pledged to the strictest economy, may think fit to cut down the Lord Chancellor’s salary, as suggested by Mr Asquith in his evidence before the Select Committee on Remuneration of Ministers, says a correspondent in the ‘ Manchester guardian.’ Dealing with tho disparity of salaries, Mr Asquith said that “ for some strange reason ” tho Lord Chancellor got twice as much as any other Minister. He thought it impossible to justify such a disparity, and could not “ see any reason for it under modern conditions.” Nor could Mr Asquith see any reason for paying the Law Officers salaries “ much m excess of those of ordinary Cabinet Ministers,” The Prime Minister, in Mr Asquith’s opinion, is underpaid, but not so 1 the Chancellor of tho Exchequer, He informed the committee that “tho Chancellor of the Exchequer is not a heavily worked official, as I know very well, having been Chancellor of the Exchequer myself, and having seen a great many Chancellors at work. As compared with any of the Secretaryships of State, it is a very lightly-worked office. It is a very important and responsible one, but the departmental duties of the Treasury, as far as the Chancellor of tho Exchequer is concerned, in normal times are not compar-' able with those of the head of one of the Secretaryships of State.”