POLITICAL PENSIONS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 289, 26 April 1911, Page 5

POLITICAL PENSIONS

INTERESTING PARTICULARS. Since the beginning of the year Mr. Gerald Balfour has resigned the political pension granted to him in 1905. The pension has an interesting history (says the Morning Lender). It amounted to £I2OO a year, and was claimed by Mr. Gerald Balfour on December sth, 1905, the day after his brother's Government, in which he held the position of President of the Board of Trade, resigned. Mr. Arthur Balfour did not hand over the seals till a few days later, and was thus in the pleasant position, as First Lord of the Treasury, of granting his brother's application before formally quitting office. The brotherly deed was one of his last official actions. The date of Mr. G. Balfour's application was. also four days after Sir Michael Hicks Beach, by resigning his pension of the same amount, had created a vacancy in the list of recipients. Until recently there were six political pensions in existence, all held by Tory ex-Cabinet Ministers. They were:— Lord Cross £2OOO a year. Lord G. Hamilton £2OOO a year. Mr, Chaplin £I2OO a year. Sir John Gorst £ 1200 a year. Lord Balfour of Burleigh £I2OO a year. Mr. Gerald Balfour .... £I2OO a year. Sir John Gorst resigned his pension in. 1909, so that Mr, Gerald Balfour's resignation leaves only four in existence. It is a condition of receiving these pensions that the applicant shall place in writing a statement of his services performed and the grounds on which his pension is claimed, with a declaration that "his total income is inadequate to maintain liis position in life." Mr. Henry Chaplin, one of the four remaining Tory or ex-Ministers who enjoy political pensions, has been a consistent critic of the Liberal Government's Old Age Pensions Act. fie ha» been in receipt of his pension for abous eleven years.