The Hawera Star. SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1931. WAGES OF STATESMANSHIP.

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 3 January 1931, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1931. WAGES OF STATESMANSHIP.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock in Hawera, Manaia, Kaupokonui, Otakeho, Oeo, Pihama, Opunake, Nonnanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Ngaere, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Te Kiri, Mahoe, Lowgarth, Manutahi, Kakaramea, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Whenuakura, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere, Fraser Road, and Ararata.

The report of the Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons some time ago to consider the question of the Prime Minister’s salary, contains a recommendation for an increase of the present rate of £SOOO a year to £7OOO. Practically everyone admits that this readjustment of the Prime Minister’s salary to meet more adequately the calls that are made upon his purse is a long overdue reform. Mr Baldwin, Mr Lloyd George and Mr Ramsay MacDonald in their evidence to the committee agreed that, under the present rules, the office is much too expensive for any man to undertake who has not a substantial income. While polities was confined to men of wealth, this was not perhaps a very important consideration; but the rise of the Labour Party has put an entirely new aspect on the matter. Moreover, it is certainly undignified that the salary of the head of the British Government should be noticeably less than that of the chief executives of other first-class nations. The remuneration of the President of the United States, including allowance for expenses, is equivalent, to £20,000, of the President of the French Republic £16,000, and of the President of the Reich £9OOO, so that even the proposed increase hardly errs on the side of generosity. Mr Stanley Baldwin made the interesting suggestion tO|

the committee that the leader of the Opposition, who at present draws only the annual £4OO of the ordinary member of Parliament, should receive a special salary. The Press generally admits that there is a practically unanswerable case >for Mr Baldwin’s recommendation. Thei leader of the Opposition has a full-time job; he is a prospective Prime Minister; he is the only member of his party whom circumstances almost entirely prevent from augmenting his income in any way, and it is extremely undesirable that he should be embarrassed by ( financial anxiety, which is inevitably the case unless he be a man of private wealth. Though this proposal lay outside the committee’s scope, there is little likelihood that it will be allowed to drop. This question of the remuneration of statesmanship has aroused interesting reflections in English newspapers. There appears on one hand a belief that if ministerial positions are not accompanied by generous salaries, politics will lose to the business world the best ability of the country, and on the other an opinion that those who are not willing to give their services to the State for a more or less nominal sum are not worth retaining. The latter will probably be found to be an unrealistic and mistaken view. It would confine political activities to the rich, and might often deprive the country of any gifts of statesmanship among those who have to work for their living as they go. Furthermore, it would introduce conditions into British public life that until recently were foreign to it. For it simply is not true that British statesmen in the past have been accustomed to doing their work foxnothing. Almost until the beginning of the nineteenth century English politics often was an extremely profitable career. Putting ministerial salaries on a substantial basis would be thoroughly in accordance with the traditions of British public life.