A WAGELESS PREMIER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12016, 12 July 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

A WAGELESS PREMIER.

A good deal of fun, more or less sly, is poked at Lord Salisbury on account of his finding in the family ciicle an undue proportion of men precisely suited for high Ministerial office as posts chance to fail vacant. The fact is overlooked that- the Prime Minister himself draws a salary that does not exceed that of a junior Minister. - It is one of the anomalies of the British Constitution that .110 remuneration is attached to the office of the Prime Minister, a post which, in fact, finds no official recognition. When, just before Christmas, 1900, Lord Salisbury resigned the post- of Foreign Minister he was, as in debate on the Water Bill Mr. Boifinois described the expropriated stockholders, penniless. In these painful circumstances Lord (Cross generously came to the rescue. For fifteen years that eminent statesman, finding himself in a ! position to make the necessary oath of com- I parative penury, has drawn \ a first-class ' Cabinet pension of £2000 a year. I One drawback to this felicity i 3 that the pension is - intermitted on the beneficiary;' taking office. Thus Lord ■ Cross, ■ appointed Lord Privy • Seal , on; the formation of j Lord 'Salisbury's Government in 1896, was really "no forrader" in the matter of income. Secure in any cjase -, of ; a tribute of • £2000 a year jiaicl by a, grateful nation he, when after the genera} election of 1900 Lord Salis- 1 bury, forming his fourth Administration, retired from, the Foreign Office, • magnanimously placed at his chief's disposal the /Privy, Seal with its salary of £2000 a year, : { 4 , •.Thus was the Premier provided for, and., thus he modestly: draws a salary ' just onefifth of the amount of that enjoyed by his colleague and crony, the Lord ; Chancellor.? Is cannot be i : said by the most niggardly 1 commentator that. Lord Snliiibury has been overpaid for his public, work. Entering ; Parliament a youth of twenty-three he has. been', for nearly half a -century engaged in; the forefront of political life. At the time he resigned the Foreign Seals he had, through an aggregate term of twenty years, drawn something like £100,000. That would have been ft poor guerdon for ia ; similar period devoted by it man of consummate ability to his private affairs W, Lucy, in the Strand Magazine for June.'