SCRAPING A LIVING

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2436, 15 April 1915, Page 3

SCRAPING A LIVING

MINISTER DISCUSSES STIPENDS. '(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) Christchiirch, April 14. The Rev. Dr. Erwin jumped up at the meeting of the Christchurch Presbytery to-day to protest against a proposal to pay for a series or weekly services at West Melton at the rate of £25 yearly. "My firm conviction," he said, "is that the financial consideration is working against a large number of men coming forward for the Church. If a man has the right spirit the financial consideration is not the chief consideration,- but a man has to live. The cost of living has been goinp up and the average stipend going down. Since I have been here the minimum stipend has been reduced from £250. to £200. Then there iis the miserable retiring allowance. _ A man can scarcely scrape a living during his ministry, and after forty years or service he is given by way of retiring allowance the magnificent sum of £90 per annum. These things count. The farming community have done marvellously well for the last fifteen years. When they were doing poorly and times were hard, stipends were dropped, but there is no appearance of the farmers increasing stipends again now that times are better. I say that £25 a year is a miserable pittance to ask a man to travel twenty miles every Sunday to give his services." Other members of the Presbytery hastened to explain that tlie £25 was only a tentative suggestion, a bare 1 minimum, so to speak, but the district affected would no doubt be willing to contribute a larger sum. The Presbytery decided to invite the district to state exactly what sum it proposed to pay.