Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 234, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1913 — PAY OF BRITISHERS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PAY OF BRITISHERS

Premier Asquith Receives No Salary in That Office. Assumes Another Portfolio Remuneration Prom Which Is More Profitable •—Lord Chancellor Geta sso r 000 a Year. London. —Up to date no cabinet minister in this country has threatened to go on the lecture platform on the ground that his official salary is inadequate to his needs, although David Lloyd George recently assured an investigation committee that he was h poor man on the $25,000 a year—or over twice as much as is paid to any member of President Wilson’s official family—which he receives as chancellor of the exchequer. Ministers of the crown are in receipt of salaries and enjoy “perquisites” which must make the mouths of American ministers water if they know about them. One of them draws an actual stipend of $50,000, or as much as ,the presidency of the United States was worth until a few years ago, while another gets $35,000 a year and fees in addition, which more often than not amount to more than his official pay. Three others live rent free at the expense of the public.

and one of these fatter, the first lord of the admiralty, has at his disposal, besides, a private yacht which costs the British taxpayers something like $50,000 a year to keep up. If William J. Bryan, for example. Instead of being secretary of state for Uncle Sam, had Prime Minister Asquith’s Job, be would be drawing more than three times bis present salary and would also enjoy, rent free, an uncommonly comfortable as well as historic official residence. The premiership of England. It Is true, is an unpaid Job, the only real perquisite In connection with it being its holder’s privilege of occupying the famous mansion, 10 Downing street —now the goal of suffragettes and Scotch bailies —which often has been described, and perhaps Justly, as “the most Interesting bouse in the world.” Whoever becomes premier when a new administration comes Into being, however, seldom contents himself with that office, but takes unto himself also the portfolio of some other minister of .the crown. Mr. Balfour before him, that of first lord of the treasury, which carries with it the yearly emolument of $25,000. Directly next door Is 11 Downing street, an Infinitely less luxurious and historic but eminently comfortable house, where, emit free again lives the chancellor of tho exchequer. It is rather a striking coincidence, by the way, that Lloyd Qeoige, who, like W.

J. Bryan, has come to be regarded as the tribune and advocate of the “plain people,” should, like his distinguished contemporary on the other side of the Atlantic, ba the only member of the present cabinet to allege that his official salary is Inadequate to his needs. In the United States there is no exact counterpart of the lord chancellor who, besides acting as speaker of the upper house, is supreme head of the English Judiciary, and who draws an annual salary of $50,000. When he retires, moreover, he immediately enters on a life annuity amounting to $25,000 a year. The present holder of this office is Lord Haldane, who was secretary of state for war before his elevation to the woolsack. Nobody ever has accused the lord chancellor of having a snap. Besides Bitting, clad in wig and gown, as speaker of the house of peers he sits at a Judge in that house, in the privy council, the court of appeal, and the chancery division of the high court of Justice. He has the appointment of all justices of the peace throughout the kingdom, and all the judges of ths superior courts except the lord chief justice, who Is nominated by the prim* minister.

David Lloyd Georgs.