BIG-SALARIED MEN WHO ARE POOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 3352, 12 June 1918, Page 54

BIG-SALARIED MEN WHO ARE POOR.

"Poverty consists in feeling poor," said a famous American. And to none does this saying apply with greater force than to Ambassadors' and Ministers of State. Very few there are who do not retire from office poorer than when they took it. The reason is that the whole of thenofficial income, and a bit more, is spent on entertaining. If in addition to this necessary expenditure a man happens to have extravagant habits, or, worse still, is saddled with an extravagant wife, ho is poor indeed. It is said that a certain prominent politician. Avho must, of course, ■bo nameless, is always hard up, in spite of the magnitude of his earnings. What entertaining may mean in the matter of expense may be judged from an admksion once made by Lord Rosebery. lie remarked, quite casually, to Sir John Robinson, that, as Foreign Minister in 1893, he had spent on two receptions at the Foreign Office one-half of his whole year's official income. "Anyone present,"* adds Sir John, "at one of these receptions, when the whole of the walls and staircases of that magnificent building were dressed in flowers, must have guessed that the cost was enormous."

Such outlays as these would; of course, simply cripple a man without ample private means. It must have been of the Downing street of his day that Dr Johnson was thinking when he wrote that ''Poverty is often ooncealcd in splendour and often in extravagance." —Too Poor to be a Peer. — Gladstone, who .as Prime Minister could distribute titles and honours with both hands, M-as too poor to accept the Peerage which was more than once offered him. When he retired from parliamentary life he was practically forced to sell a fine collection of Wedgwood pottery which ho had taken a lifetime to get together and of which he was very proud. Pitt, again, although he drew £4OOO a year as Prime Minister, £IBOO as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and another £3OOO as Warden of the Cinque Ports, died heavily in debt. Macaulay, in his biography, points out how much to Pitt's credit this fact really was, inasmuch as it showed that, in spite of considerable temptation and ample opportunity, he was careful not to divert public moneys into his own purse. Some of his colleagues, it may be remarked, had no such scruples. —Poor with £3500 a Year.— When Dr Woodrow Wilson went to White House he declared that "Ability before Wealth" was to be the order of the day, particularly in the selection of America's representatives abroad. Mr Taft had started with the same laudable intentions, but before long he found that it was a case of wealthy diplomats or none at all. From all accounts his successor will be forced to the same conclusion. The trouble is, of course, that an Ambassador, particularly one attached to such a city as London or Paris, has got to fill a quart pot in the way of entertaining with a pint in the shape of income. America's representative in London, for instance, gets £3SCO a year, and yet, according to Mr Ohoate, £IO,OOO a year scarcely covers the expenses of the office. The latter sum, it may be remarked, is the salary of England's representative at Washington. Apropos of American Ambassadors, a writer tells the story of how a man was found wandering in the dead of night round Trafalgar square by a kind-hearted constable, who recommended him to go home. "Home?" exclaimed the wanderer. "I have no home. I'm the American Ambassador." —Men Who Earn Their Money.— Of all European Ministers probably the most poorly paid are the members of the Swiss Executive. Their salary is only £4BO a year, and by all accounts they earn their money. The late Sir Horace Pvumbokl, for some years our representative at Berne, pays 'them a high tribute. "Their attention," he says, "is unremittingly engaged by the* most delicate mechanism of government; by the wheels within wheels of federal or cantonal attribute or prerogative, ; ,by endeavours to preserve the counterpoise between two, not to say three, nationalities. These plain, unassuming men bring to their arduous duties a remarkable degree of tact and sagacity, and form an executive as able and efficient as any I have seen at work in the many countries I have resided in." And yet the President of this able body gets' an official salary of no more than £540 a year. He is changed every year, and lias no privilege as President, not even a uniform.

As showing how little known is the head of the Government even to his own countrymen, a writer has recently recorded a quaint experience. "I was once dining with a party of Swiss men," he says, "and talk turned on the Government. The President! Not one of these alert men could tell me the name of the head of the Government. Then one of them called the waiter. The waiter was .the only man in the room who knew the name of the President. And he knew it only because the Swiss President happened to be his uncle." —£s4o to £24,000. It is a far cry, in the matter of income, from the Swiss to the French President. The latter draws the substantial salary of £24,000 a year, and is allowed ag much again for entertaining and travelling expenses. This sounds a big sum, but it is none too big when one considers the unique position occupied by the titular hea-d of France. In foreign affairs he is is country's permanent representative; he is Grand Master of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, and has besides such a host of duties and

occupations as to leave very little over from his official income. In point of fact, in comparison with the £1,250,000 which the last French Monarch received, the President must feel quite a poor man. The £24,003 which the French President receives as salary"* is exactly the amount which is iioav allowed to the Governorgeneral of Australia as salary and expenses. His actual salary was fixed by the Federal Convention at'£lo,ooo, partly, it is said, because that was the amount given to the President of the United Statei. For many years no allowance was made for the expenses of entertaining. The net result was that, during his term of office, a Governor-general had to reckon on paying £IO,OOO a year out of his own pocket. When the (then) Duke of York visited Australia an extra £IO,OCO was voted to Lord Hbpetown to compensate him for the great additional expenditure to which he had been put, and from that time £5500 a year was allowed to cover the cost of the upkeep of the Federal Government House. This amount has gradually been increased, and now exceeds £14,000, and yet even this large sum is said to be inadequate. Not many men would have the courage to follow Lord Tennyson's lead in this matter. When asked to fill for a time the vacancy caused by the retirement of Lord Hopetown, he told Federal Ministers that "he proposed to spend the amount voted to him, and not a penny more; if-* that did not satisfy them he would not serve." It is believed that he stuck to his resolution throughout his term of office, and suffered no loss of popularity in the Commonwealth thereby; but the social pinpricks to -which an economical Governor would be subjected by the class of nouveanx riches with which he is compelled to associate would prove too much for the comfort of any but a very strong-minded man.