JUDICIAL COMMITTEE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 518, 22 November 1928, Page 9

JUDICIAL COMMITTEE

TWO NEW MEMBERS SOUGHT COMMONS VOTE SALARIES (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) LONDON, Tuesday. In the House of Commons the At-torney-General, Sir Thomas Inskip, moved for the appointment of two additional members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at a salary of £4,000 a year, and a pension of £I,OOO a year, and an additional judge of the Appeal Court, at a salary of £6,000, and a pension of £3,750. The mover said the late Viscount Haldane had shortened his life by overwork on the Judicial Committee. Sir Henry Slesser, Solicitor-General in the Labour Government, asked if the Earl of Birkenhead would claim his pension as an ex-Lord Chancellor, of £5,000 a year, seeing that he did not propose to serve on tlje Judicial Committee. The Atorney-General said Lord Birkenhead had informed him that he would shortly undertake new employment with substantial emoluments, and that he proposed to claim the pension only for the transition period. Nevertheless Lord Birkenhead’s view was that the pension was for past, not for present, legal services. Captain Wedgwood Benn, Labour member for Aberdeen North, asked how many directorships Lord Birkenhead would need before relinquishing his pension. Could he reclaim the pension if his commercial ventures came to nothing? The Attorney-General: Certainly. The resolution was carried -without a division.