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The Prime Minister, head of the Government and its maker, receives no salary. The position was even unknown to the Constitution until 1905, when it was formally recognized and given high precedence by King Edward VII on the appointment of Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman to it in succession to Mr. Arthur Balfour. Some office of State carrying a salary is accordingly held by the Prime Minister. It is usually that of First Lord of the Treasury, or, as he is fully described, “First Commissioner for executing the Office of the Lord High Treasurer of his Majesty’s Exchequer,” which carries a salary of £5,000 a year and that famous official residence, No. 10 Downing Street. There is a country house, “Chequers,” in Buckingham, the gift in 1920 of Lord Lee of Farnham. The post is a sinecure in the departmental sense, no duties being attached to it, which leaves the holder of it free to discharge his most responsible, varied, and laborious task as Prime Minister. This includes the general supervision of every Department of the State, domestic, colonial, and foreign, and the direction and control of the political policy of the Government.
Of the Prime Ministers who have sat in the House of Commons, some have been not only First Lord of the Treasury, but Chancellor of the Exchequer also. Pitt was Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as First Lord of the Treasury in his long term of office from 1783 to 1801. Henry Addington, who succeeded Pitt as Prime Minister, was also Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Treasury. Pitt, on returning to power in 1804, again filled the two offices; and the precedent was followed by Perceval and Canning when each was Prime Minister. Sir Robert Peel, in his first brief three-months’ administration of 1834-35, was also First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Gladstone, both in his first Administration, 1868-74, and in his second, 1880-85, was for a time Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as First Lord of the Treasury. The Prime Ministers, from Pitt to Canning, who were Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Treasury, drew the salaries of both offices, then amounting to £10,398; but it was decided by the Committee of 1831 that in the event of the two positions being again filled by one Minister, half the salary of the second office should be withheld. Peel and Gladstone, accordingly, were paid only at the rate of £7,500 a year—the full salary of each office being fixed at £5,000 in 1831—for the time that each was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Salisbury made a new departure as Prime Minister by acting as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his three Administrations, 1885, 1886, and 1895, at a salary of £5,000. The labours of these Prime Ministers, who, in addition to supervising everything, administered a special Department, and particularly a Department so onerous as that of the Treasury or the Foreign Office, must indeed have been immense. It is improbable, now that the labours and responsibilities of office are ever increasing, that this herculean task will ever be undertaken again. But it shows that our Prime Ministers have never shirked work while enjoying the emoluments of office, to use the consecrated phrase.
The chief of the Treasury, in the control of the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of the national revenue, is not the First Lord of the Treasury, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is a hard-worked Minister and not often is his task of making ends meet brightened by the sunshine of popular favour. “You have held for a long time the most unpopular office of the State,” Gladstone, as Prime Minister, wrote to his fallen Chancellor of the Exchequer, Robert Lowe, who had come to grief over an attempt to impose a tax upon matches in 1873. “No man can do his duty in that office and be popular while he holds it,” he went on. “I could easily name the two worst Chancellors of the Exchequer of the last forty years; against neither of them did I ever hear a word while they were in (I might almost add, nor for them after they were out): ‘Blessed are ye when men shall revile you.’ You have fought for the public tooth and nail. You have been under a storm of unpopularity; but not a fiercer one than I had to stand in 1860, when hardly anyone dared to say a word for me; but, certainly, it was one of my best years of service, even though bad be the best.” The salary attached to this arduous office before 1831 was £5,398, which was made up of fees from different sources. On the recommendation of the Committee of 1831 it was reduced to a fixed sum of £5,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has also an official residence, 11 Downing Street.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who assists the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the administration of his department, is paid £2,000 a year. There are also three Junior Lords of the Treasury. As such they have no official duties whatever. What, then, do they do for their salary of £1,000 a year each? According to an amusing definition of their duties given by Canning, they are always to be at St. Stephen’s, to keep a House and to cheer the Ministers. They are, in fact, the assistant Whips of the Party in office. The Chief Whip also fills a sinecure post of £2,000 a year, which used to be styled the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, and has of late years been called the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury.[2] The Constitution knows not the Whips. They are provided for by offices to which there are salaries, but no duties attached.