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Why do every Government cling so tenaciously to the responsibility and drudgery of office? Wherefore the feverish eagerness of every Opposition to take the burdens of the Empire upon their shoulders? Do the “Spoils of Office” account for the great trouble there always is in compelling the “ins” to get out, and the little persuasion necessary to induce the “outs” to come in? Surely here is a matter of high public interest, which is well worth investigation.
The salaries of most of the chief offices of the Ministry were settled at their present figures by an arrangement made so long ago as 1831. During the Administration of Earl Grey (better known as the Reform Ministry) fixed incomes of £5,000 a year for the Secretaries of State, and £2,000 a year for the Presidents of Boards were agreed to on the recommendation of a Select Committee of the House of Commons. In 1850 the emoluments of office were again reviewed by a Select Committee, and they reported in favour of the retention, practically, of the 1831 settlement. Included in this Committee of fifteen members were such rigid economists as Molesworth, Cobden, Bright, and Ricardo, who grudged almost every penny spent for State purposes. “For these offices,” they said in their report, “it is requisite to secure the services of men who combine the highest talents with the greatest experience in public affairs; and considering the rank and importance of the offices and the labour and responsibility incurred by those who hold them, your Committee are of opinion that the salaries of these officers were settled in 1831 at the lowest amount consistent with the requirements of the public service.”
The differences in the emoluments of the more important offices of Cabinet rank have been a source of embarrassment to many a Prime Minister engaged in forming a Government. It has often happened that a man offered a post with the lower salary has considered himself slighted by his political chief. To give one conspicuous instance, the appointment of Joseph Chamberlain to the Board of Trade by Gladstone in 1880 was resented by the Radicals, if not by Chamberlain himself, as a belittling of his services and abilities. This feeling did not tend to the harmony of the inner councils of the Liberal Government; and yet the only foundation for it was that the Presidency of the Board of Trade had only £2,000 a year as compared with the £5,000 of a Secretary of State, for intrinsically it was a high and important office.
In 1915 the Cabinet Ministers of the first War Coalition Government, under Asquith, decided to put their varying salaries, big and little, into a common fund, and then divide the amount equally among all. The “pooling” was entirely novel. Its purpose was to mitigate the personal hardship caused to certain Ministers who, in the reshuffle of offices necessary in order to include Unionists in the Coalition Government, had their emoluments reduced, or else to afford a salve to their offended dignity. To give one example, so distinguished a Minister as Winston Churchill would otherwise have lost £2,500 a year by his transfer from the office of First Lord of the Admiralty, paid £4,500, to the office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, paid £2,000. But the general effect of this adoption by the combined Liberals and Unionists in the Cabinet of the trade union principle of paying one rate of wages, was to more than double the salaries of some Ministers, and more than half the salaries of others. The sum that each received was £2,446. The chief sacrifices were made by the Lord Chancellor, whose salary is £10,000, and the Attorney-General, whose salary, exclusive of fees, is £7,000. The Prime Minister’s salary was excluded from the pool. In the House of Commons the arrangement was criticized on the ground that it was come to “behind the back of Parliament,” and altered the remuneration of Ministers which Parliament had sanctioned. Mr. Asquith strongly deprecated the discussion. He absolutely declined to admit the right of the House of Commons to inquire how Ministers proposed to spend their salaries. “For my part,” he added, “I will never consent to hold office in this House under the Crown, subject to the condition that the House of Commons or any other body in this country is entitled to inquire how I spend the money which I receive. If my right hon. friends and colleagues—for I have no concern in the matter myself—choose by domestic arrangement among themselves to determine how their particular salaries are going to be allocated, I submit that that is not a matter for the House or the public.” The payment to each Minister of the salary attached by Parliament to his office was resumed under the second Coalition Government formed by Mr. Lloyd George.