Tan Kin Lian's Blog: David Marshall in 1994

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

David Marshall in 1994

http://thinkhappiness.blogspot.com/2006/08/meeting-david-marshall-in-1994.html

I've got nothing against money. I'd like to have money myself! I'd like to
have a house and a garden and dogs and a car and a chauffeur but, look,
I've got a flat. I've got a swimming pool attached to the flat. I've not
even got a car but I use taxis. I have a dignified way of life without
being wealthy.

I don't see the necessity of owning a Mercedes-Benz and a swimming pool
and a couple of mistresses. I think we've got our values all wrong.
You know $96,000 a month for a Prime Minister and $60,000 a month for a
minister. What the hell do you do with all that money? You can't eat it!
What do you do with it? Your children don't need all that money.

My children have had the best of education. In fact, I'm very proud of
them. One of them is a senior registrar to two major hospitals in Oxford.
Another of them is a consultant in European law to the Securities and
Investment Board in the United Kingdom. They've had their education. There
are no complaints.

I never earned $60,000 a month or $90,000 a month. When I was Chief
Minister, I earned $8,000 a month.

Look, what is happening today is we are encouraged to and are becoming
worshippers of the Golden Calf.

We have lost sight of the joy and excitement of public service, helping
our fellow men. The joy and excitement of seeking and understanding of the
joy of the miracle of the living the duty and the grandeur. We have lost
taste for heroic action in the service of our people.

We have become good bourgeois seeking comfort, security. It's like seeking
a crystal coffin and being fed by intravenous injections through pipes in
the crystal coffin; crystal coffins stuck with certificates of your
pragmatic abilities.

2 comments:

yujuan said...: In economic sense, there is a law of diminishing returns, the more you put in, the lesser the effect would be.
Similarly, the higher the pay for a person, the lesser the motive to excel, slowly their performance regress, and work become mediocre in time. See this example manifests in our Minister's pay.
Recently, anyone who ever approach our Minister MPs for help would find to their disgust, their MPs' rudeness for ignoring them and leaving them in the lurch. They have none of their former colleages
passion to serve the people. Higher pay does not equate better work.
Moreover, we do not need so much money to live on, after all, we come into this world with nothing, and we could not bring anything into our coffin when we leave. Why let greed get the better of us.; August 10, 2010 9:39 PM
michael13 said...: The biggest problem is when the tops arrange themselves to be paid millions($$$$$$$.......) of dollars and the ordinary Singaporeans are still struggling to make ends meet. Consequently, it has resulted in much difficulties for the people to identify with their leaders. But the productivity movements need to be speadheaded by the tops. In this sense, the present team of political leaders can be considered as 'irresponsible'. No doubt about that.; August 11, 2010 9:24 AM