When Lord John Russell was Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury he publicly declared that no man without a private fortune could hope to fill any of the high offices of the State with freedom from pecuniary worries. “For my part,” he said, “I never had a debt in my life until I was First Lord of the Treasury.” A Minister was obliged largely to increase his personal expenditure in order to meet the social calls of his office. He must live in a better style as a Member of the Government than as a Member of the Opposition. A large house, servants, and carriages were essential to the adequate fulfilling of his social obligations as a Minister. “If I recollect aright,” said Lord John Russell to the Select Committee on Official Salaries in 1850, “when Monsieur de Tercy went from France to endeavour to make peace with the Dutch Government, he was very much struck, on calling upon the Grand Pensionary, to find the door opened by a servant-maid, and he thought it showed very great republican sympathy; and no doubt it was very becoming. But I think that if Lord Palmerston had only a housemaid to open the door, and Foreign Ministers called there, everybody would say that he was very mean and unfit for his situation.” Palmerston was, at the time, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and, being a wealthy man, was noted for his lavish hospitality. In fact, the £5,000 a year which the head of the Foreign Office is paid does not always cover the cost of living, and the social entertainments which he has annually to give. In addition to maintaining a position of great dignity in a becoming manner, he is expected regularly to entertain at his own expense the members of the various foreign diplomatic missions in London. Lord Rosebery has said that when he was Foreign Secretary in 1893 he spent half of his year’s salary upon two receptions at the Foreign Office.