CABINET MINISTER AND MUSIC HALL ARTIST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1016, 11 July 1911, Page 4

CABINET MINISTER AND MUSIC HALL ARTIST.

SALARIES COMPARED,

Writing to Sydney Morning Herald of a recent big function given by the British Prime Minister to the visiting delegates to the Imperial Conference and other prominent men, Sir Henry Lucy says:—“The entertainment was all very well for the guests, whose only complaint was about the difficulties of getting in and getting out, and moving when they achieved entrance. It is a different thing tor the Prime Minister to whom this episode, lasting from half-past 10 till after midnight, was an item of the day’s work. In addition to the cares ot State, vastly augmented just now by the crowding in of the colonies, he had his Parliamentary duties to attend to as assiduously as if they comprised his sole burden. I saw him in the House at questioning, dealing with a multiplicity of important questions. He came on from Buckingham Palace, where he lunched with the King to meet the colonial Premiers. Later he presided at his own table at a dinner given to the Premiers, and then went on to the Foreign Office to all the principal part in an historical pageant. It is only a strong man who can, with withers unwrung, face this daily ordeal. Happily Mr Asquith is, physically and intellectually, adamantine in strength.

“ It cannot be said that for such labour, compared with which the British workman’s eight-hours’ days is a restful interval, the Prime Minister is overpaid. When, the other night, after the Dalziel dinner, I saw Mr Asquith cheerily conversing with Harry Lauder, there flashed upon my mind the incongruous thought of the earning power of the two men. The Premier, as everyone knows, has a salary of ,£SOOO a year, a sum which, in view of expenditure pertaining to his office, presents no margin for savings, I am most definitely informed as to the amount of Harry Lauder’s weekly takings in this country. It is understood that for the present he is somewhat hampered by contracts entered upon before he had completed his conquest of the Music Hall world. In the United States, where he was a free agent, he earned a clear .£IOOO a week. It is probably an under-estimate to assume that his income is at the rate of ,£30,000 a year—a sum equal to the aggregate salaries of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of State tor War, the Home Secretary, and the Secretary of State for India.

“Knowing these things, it is not surprising a read that “the Great Lafayette,” who came to a tragic end in Edinburgh the other week, left behind him a fortune of ,£IOO,OOO. Of course, the stars in the firmament of the music hall do not shine over a prolonged period. Like the Great Vance of mid-Victorian days, some temporary favourites live to a period of advanced years in something like straightened circumstances. A canny Scot, Harry Lauder, has invested large sums in land, which, though not yielding an immediate big return, has the quality ot treasure laid up elsewhere, neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal.