Ministers' Salaries To the proposal that Ministers' salaries should be
equalised (apart from the Prime Minister's, and, with less justice, the Lord Chancellor's) there can be no objection, and none worth speaking of was expressed in the House of Commons debate. And since there can be no serious question of reducing the higher salaries the lower ones must dearly be brought up to the £5,000 figure. In one respect the proposals might reasonably be amended. The upkeep of official residences like to and II Downing Street might fairly be made a public charge, as in the case of Chequers. As for the Prime Minister, since in future he will get a nominal Lio,000, of which he will return in taxation over £3,700, no one can complain that the new allowance is excessive. The proposal to give the Leader of the Opposition a salary of £2,000 at a moment when in half a dozen European countries no Opposition, and consequently no Opposition leader, is allowed to exist, is a significant gesture. But there are objections to the proposal. The Leader of the Opposition is not necessarily the" hardest-worked man in his party ; it is not desirable that financial consideration should in any way affect the choice of leader ; and the proposal really depends for its justice on the survival of a two-party system. To raise members' salaries from &co to £500 as a sequel would be obviously proper. £500 buys less today than £400 did in 1911.
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