£5,000 TOO LITTLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 388, 23 June 1928, Page 1

£5,000 TOO LITTLE

SALARY OF SPEAKER ILL-PAID MINISTERS NOTORIOUS FACT STATED Reed. noon. RUGBY, Friday. The Rt. Hon. William Graham, a Labour member of Parliament and an ex-Minister. who is chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, a Parliamentary body which keeps close watch upon departmental expenditure, has put down a motion on behalf of the Labour Party, asking: for an inquir> into the “emoluments and expenses attaching to the office of Speaker. ' Mr. Graham's view, which is shared by most members of the House, is that the salary of the Speaker, which ha? remained fixed since 1895, at £5,009 yearly, is now inadequate, in view of the expenses attached to the post. The cost of the official hospitality he nausi offer is alone about £1,590. It is regarded as possible that the scope of a committee representative of the whole House, which would consider the matter, may be extended to include the question of salaries paid to Ministers. It is notorious that many of these are inadequate, the experience of successive Prime Ministers having been that the financial calls made upon them far exceed the annual £5,000 received The taxes alone on that amount are over £7.000. Ministerial salaries generally vary from £2,000 to £5,000, with the exception of the legal posts, which are more remunerative. Mr. J. H. Whitley, the late Speaker of the House of Commons, who is Liberal member for Halifax, lias applied for a Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds.

A member of the House of Commons, according to an old principle of Parliamentary law, cannot resign his seat. This rule was brought into force in the days when local gentry had to be compelled to serve in Parliament. The only method, therefore, came to be by accepting an office of profit under the Crown, as any one holding such an office was compelled to vacate his seat. The passing of th*Place Act of 1742 brought into being the idea of utilising the appointment to certain Crown stewardships as a pretext f«»r enabling a member to resign his seal These stewardships were eight in number, but only two survived —tliA»se of the Chilterns of Northstead: and when n her now wishes to vacate his seat lie is accordingly spoken of as “taking the Chiltern Hundreds.”