POLITICAL PENSIONS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7383, 8 February 1902, Page 2

POLITICAL PENSIONS.

It is a pleasing reflection (writes Mr Lucy to the Sydney Morning Herald) that whenever a change in Ministry comes involving loss of salary tbe wind will he tempered to at least two shorn lambs. Both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for India, having found it possible to make the necessary declaration of comparative poverty, have for many years been in receipt of political pension, under the Act of 1869. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was put on the lisc on April sth, 1888, receiving a second-class pension of £1200 a year. Lord George Hamilton, taking time by the forelock, obtained a pension of £'2000 a year on the eve of the general election of 1892, which for a time placed the desirable gift beyond the reach of Lord Salisbury. Of course, these pensions are not payable whilst the beneficiaries are drawing salary as Ministers of the Crown. Before Lord Salisbury's Government was reconstructed, Lord Cross magnanimously held the Privy Seal without salary. That looked very well, shining as a bright example to other mere sordid men who insisted upon having a salary before undertaking to serve their country. The fact is Lord Cross has been on the pension list since New Year's Day, 1887. He drew j62000 a year from the public exchequer, and might take it either in meal or in malt. If he drew J62000 a year quarterly, the usual salary of the Lord Privy Seal, he must forego identical payment from the political pension fund. He discreetly secured the unique position of sitting in the Cabinet Council the only unpaid Minister, whilst his £5000 a year was punctually paid from the political pension office. The department has its comedy and its tragedy. The first was supplied in the case of Mr Charles Villiers, who, having for 30 years drew his pittance of JEI2OO, died leaving a colossal fortune. The second appears in the case of poor Lord Iddesleigh, who, having been shelved with a peerage and a pension of JB2OOO a year, lived to draw from the fund only £955 0s 9d. There is true pathos in that ninepence.