“Spirit of Grab”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 494, 25 October 1928, Page 9

“Spirit of Grab”

CABINET MINISTERS TAKEN TO TASK

DEAN INGE'S TERSE ADVICE

(United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association ) Reed. 12.30 p.m. LONDON. Wed. Dean Inge in the “Evening Standard” asks: “Are our big men overpaid,” and particularly whether £5,000 a year and the honour of serving their country should not content members of the Cabinet.

Personally he thinks that if a man is not content, with £5,000 a year he is probably dear at the price, and it would be better to let him go. It was true, he said, that stipends of ministers were fixed when money went twice as far as now, but high officials iu those day were expected to live with extreme pomposity. It was also true that the public, which pays civil servants a pittance, rains gold upon actresses, movie stars, jockeys, dramatists, lawyers and business men. It would be of incalculable benefit to the country if it were made plain that the best people were content to live simple and self-denying lives. The stability of the social structure was threatened by the universal spirit of grab. Certainly large business incomes w r ere not really earned, except in the case of a clever surgeon. “Let public men cut their coats according to their cloth,” he concludes. “It is unpatriotic to ask for more money at present.”