Gladstone, like Lord John Russell, lived well in office and simply in opposition. On his appointment as Prime Minister for the first time in 1868 he took a house in that region of the rich and fashionable, Carlton House Terrace. After his defeat in the General Election of 1875 he wrote to his wife saying that they must retrench their expenditure. “The truth is,” he said, “that innocently and from special causes we have on the whole been housed better than according to our circumstances. All along Carlton House Terrace, I think, you would not find anyone with less than £20,000 a year, and most of them with much more.” His official salary was but £5,000, and when it was stopped he retired to Harley street. During his two other terms of office as Prime Minister he inhabited the official house in Downing Street. Gladstone had a passion for public economy. He even grudged the spending of a small sum of money to make bright with flowers the little garden at the back of No. 10 Downing Street, so eager was his desire to limit the demands on the National Exchequer. But he always considered that he had well earned his allowance as Minister. Mr. John Bright, it seems, had a compunctious visiting of shame every time that the quarterly cheque for his official salary arrived, and once he disclosed his feelings to Gladstone. “There I don’t agree with you, Bright,” said Gladstone. “I’d rather take my official money than anything I receive from land, for I know I have earned every penny of it.” The emoluments of office were an important consideration to some of the greatest men in political history. Burke, Pitt, Sheridan, Perceval and Canning had no hereditary fortunes, and if there were not adequate salaries attached to office they could not have given their great abilities to the services of the country in government and administration. Edmund Burke, whose movement for economic reform in the conduct of State affairs led to the abolition of many political sinecures, insisted, nevertheless, that reasonable emoluments should be paid to Ministers. He said: I will even go so far as to affirm that if men were willing to serve in such situations without salary, they ought not to be permitted to do it. Ordinary service must be secured by the motives to ordinary integrity. I do not hesitate to say that the State which lays its foundation in rare and heroic virtues will be sure to have its superstructure in the basest profligacy and corruption. An honourable and fair profit is the best security against avarice and rapacity, as in all things else a lawful and regulated enjoyment is the best security against debauchery and excess.