A "STAR'S" SALARY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 666, 19 October 1933, Page 4

A "STAR'S" SALARY

What is the maximum salary ? Generally, it is the highest salary you can get. Hitherto, the law has not taken an interest in the question, but the soaring of salaries at Hollywod — mocking the times — is reported to have caused a "code" limit, introduced "under Presidential influence," (states the Wellington Evening Post). Waskington states that "White House is opposed to the payment to film people of salaries five or six times as large as the President's salary." Whether White House regards the film remuneration as an isolated case, or whether there is any attempt to lay down a general principle, is not quite clear ; but it is stated that the purpose of the limitation of salaries is "to avoid the payment of sums unreasonably in excess of the fair value of personal services, which results in unfair and- destructive competition." How to define "the fair value of personal services" is a very old problem, but it is only in special circumstances that individual salaries can bulk largely in production- costs. Apart from economics, in the public mind the real pinch is excessive payment for non-essential work. Public contrihution of salaries sometimes produces strange results. Consider,' for example, what would be the salary of "the living skeleton" if the public suddenly1 developed a craze to 'patronise freak sjde-shows. The pay