§ MR. COGHILL (Stoke-upon-Trent)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the sums received by the Attorney General last year, amounting to £17,264 for salary and fees, are in accordance with the terms of the last Treasury Minute; and, if so, what alteration is proposed for the present year.
§ MR. HANBURYYes, Sir. The, Minute referred to provides that the Attorney General shall receive a salary of £7,000 a year for all noncontentious business, and that for contentious business he shall receive fees according to the ordinary professional scale, moaning thereby the scale of fees which a Queen's Counsel of average standing in the profession might accept from a private client. Under this provision the Attorney General received fees amounting to £10,264 in the year 1898–9. This was greatly in excess of the average owing to special payments amounting to £2,585 in connection with the Venezuela Arbitration. I am not aware that there is any intention of altering the Minute as regards the present year.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLWill the Government see that justice is done to this lamentably underpaid official?
MR. COGIIILLWill the Government consider the advisability of payment of the law officers by fees or salary, but not by both?
§ [No answer was returned.]