EXPENSIVE HONOUR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20722, 15 November 1930, Page 12

EXPENSIVE HONOUR.

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER. INADEQUACY OF SALARY. "WE DO NOT LIKE NO. 10." [from orn own con respondent.] LONDON, Oct. 9 That the salary of tho Prime Minister should be raised from £SOOO to £7OOO per annum is a recommendation made in the report of the Select Committee on Ministers' Remuneration. Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Lloyd George, and Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald, who gavo evidence before the committee, all admitted the inadequacy of the present Prime Ministerial salary, and the unpleasantness of No. 10, Downing Street, from the housekeeping point of view. "Downing Street," said Mr. Baldwin, "is extraordinarily inconvenient in every other respect. Tho electric light and gas bills are enormous."

"It is perfectly preposterous," Mr. Lloyd George declared, "that a Lord Chancellor should be getting £IO,OOO while the Prime Minister is only getting £SOOO. Take tho Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General. I think it is outrageous that they should be receiving something liko £40.000 a year, one £25.000 and the other £15,000. The Prime Minister's salary of £oooo is ludicrously inadequate, and is equal to £2500 before the war." Mr. Lloyd George said he thought that the cost of private hospitality to a Prime Minister would be £IOOO a year, but said: "My wife could tell you much better than I can. How she managed to do it I don't know." "I Do Not Like No. 10." Mr. Mac Donald agreed that tho work of a modem Prime Minister is vastly greater than it was when the salaries were first fixer!. "I could not live at Hampstead and do my work here (House of Commons) and do my work as Primo Minister," he said. ♦'! apologise, but perhaps I might just tell you this. I am up in tho morning at half-past six and I rarely go to bed before one. At nine o'clock I hm at work with secretaries, boxes and despatches. I cannot get them away up to the top of Hampstead Hill. 1 have to come to my work. It takes half an hour by a good car to get down to Downing Street. Then, of course, there are all sorts of other things; you have got to have your clothes by you, and so on. Without going into details. I believe a Prime Minister cannot live in Hampstead and do this work here when the House of Commons is sitting. Therefore, very much against my will—and all our wills—because I do not like No. 10 Downing Street, my peoplo do not like No. 10, wo love our own house —we decided to com% down to No. 10, Downing Street." Servants Not Paid For. Mr. Mac Donald said that in regard to the burdens on the Prime Minister, there had been improvement since 1924, and continued:—"ln 1924, for instance, if I sat in the Cabinet room, where I think most Cabinet Ministers sat and did their work, you paid for the light and the coal, but I havo not worked in the Cabinet room. I have always worked in the room immediately abovo it, which has generally been a bedroom for other Prime Ministers; but, working up there 1 had to pay for my own coal and light. That was the case in 1924; it is not tho case now. In 1924 I had to bring all niv household goods, plate, and so on. That is not the caso now. They have changed that. They are doing much more at No. 10 now than they did before. "There is a staff of men messengers downstairs. They are paid for by the Treasury, hut all the maids aro paid for by inc. Tho kitchen is run by me. and that means, 1 think, four servants more than I usually employ, and so on. _ It is a bit of an expense. Tho entertainment side of No. 10 is very much a matter of a Prime Minister's sense of decency and conscience. My rule —it is only my rule—is that I never ask anything from the Government Entertainment Fund which has got tho least aspect of a personal entertainment. Practically tho whole of mv Naval Conference entertainment has been done out''of my own pocket. I have recovered a little from tho Entertainment Fund."

Mr. Mac Donald said that a Prime Minister without any private income, and dependent on his salary of £SOOO alone would have practically nothing left if he bore the cost of such sertli-official gatherings. "Any Prime Minister without a private income would be on the Poor Law in two years after he left office unless ho was an extremely careful person and unless he was supported by friends," he said. "It is no use closing your eyes to the fact."