AN EXPENSIVE HOBBY

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2339, 8 January 1926, Page 5

AN EXPENSIVE HOBBY

BEING A PRIME MINISTER. POOR WITH £SOOO A YEAR. Piquant comments upon the re- k sponsibility and expense of being Prime Minister are made by Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald in a review in “English Rife” of “The Prime Ministers of Britain, 1721-1921,” by the Hon. Clive Bigham. "The financial position of a Prime Minister,” he says, “is hardly less worrying than the task of keeping his team together. “There is a notion that emoluments are one of the inducements to seek this high office. “This book blows that delusion to smithereens. One cannot live in 'Downing street on a pound a week, and the work of Prime Minister entails, under the care of the most thrifty, an expenditure that would make an ordinary economist blush.” “Some of it may be owing to bad social habits, but when one faces details with an axe one soon lays that down,, as a pair of scissors Is found to be the only practical -weapon for pruning. And when the seals of office have gone Into other hands obligations remain, and have to be met by more arduous labours to procure the necessary Income. “No Prime Minister in modern times finds or can find his salary munificent, or his savings in any wayadequate to bear the burdens he takes with him when the door of 10 Downing Street closes upon him. “No 10 Downing Street makes a heavy Inroad upon, and is not an addition to, the salary; and ‘Chequers,’ that gracious gift of peace and refreshment, though it may be properly added to the enjoyment of the office, must be regarded In spite of Rord Roe’s endowment, and a body of the most generous and considerate trustees, as a minus quantity In Its cash emoluments.” “The Prime Minister’s salary la now £SOOO. and not a halfpenny more, and of that the State deducts about £ISOO in taxes. . . / “The common history of all men of possessions In public life is a neverending 'struggle with debt. If the public would only understand, I am not at all sure that the fact is to be greatly deplored.”