• • - The House of Commons on Tlutratiay, November
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appointed a Select Committee to consider what the salaries 01 Ministers should be. Colonel Gibbs, who moved for the Com- mittee, proposed that it should consider whether the salaries were inadequate, but Lord Hugh Cecil carried an amendment widening the terms of reference. Mr. Boner Law, in accepting the motion, pointed out that, though the salary was not the main attraction of office, it was not good for the State that some Ministers should receive salaries "which made it necessary for them constantly to worry about expenditure and sometimes to increase their incomes in other directions." He illustrated the inequalities of the existing scale by saying that the present Secretary for Scotland received £2,000 a year, although before his promotion he had £5,000 a year as Lord Advocate. All Ministers, whatever their offices, should, we think, be paid fair and adequate salaries. But we trust that the Committee will not overlook the equally important question of Ministers' pensions. A trifling increase of expenditure on this bead would tend to purify public life.
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