A Bonus for the Clergy

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 3, 31 August 1943, Page 7

A Bonus for the Clergy

"Carried unanimously, with one lone dissentient voice," as the Bishop of Wellington (the Rt. Hon. St. B. Holland) put it, a resolution was adopted by the Anglican Synod to the effect that in all cases, where a vicar's stipend from aH sources is not more than £350 per annum, and where the bonus was. not given last year, the; assessment shall be raised to provide a cost-of-'living bonus of £25,, the finance committee having the power to recommend otherwise in exceptional cases. The motion was moved by Mr H. A. Huggins on behalf of the finance committee, and, a second clause in the motion, also carried, was that in all other cases of vicars and in all cases of curates, vestries should be urged to make the bonus a matter of conscience, the. standing committee being empowered to raise assessments accordingly on receipt of the vestries' decisions. "The one lone dissentient voice" objected to the compulsion implied in the motion. His vestry, he said, had given him the bonus last year against, his wishes. As a result he had had to. pay more income tax and more social security charges. The balance he had given back to the. fund for the repair of the vicarage.