PASTORS ON THEIR PAY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2939, 27 November 1916, Page 4

PASTORS ON THEIR PAY

DISCUSSED BY PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY. The Presbyterian General Assembly discussed on Saturday the low rate of wages that exists in the profession. The pastors blamed the elders and the elders _ saidl it was the' Management Committee, and the people of the congregation, and some elders thought the ministers themselves were to blame, but 110 one suggested the 10 per cent, war .bonus that is so epidemic just now. One aged pastor and ex-Modera-tor said that years ago the people on the land' were struggling with mortgages, and had no money to spare, and low salaries were the natural order, but things had changed. The fanner had waxed fat and lolled in his motorcar —a veritable lordJ of creation—and yet the poor parson was forgotten. "At Kelso (Otago) .twenty years ago," said he, "1 don't suppose there was moro than one buggy' in the district outside those owned by the hotels, but I went to the A. and P. show there last year, and counted no fewer than 130 motor-cars arriving on the ground on the morning of the show, and all round my old- Sundas school scholars had farms of their own, and are rich men. Yet there the stipend has only advanced from £175 to £200 a year." In the Tapanui district the same speaker said that thirty years ago they paid £70 a year to the Sustentation Fund—to-day thqy paid! precisely the sarao amount. Thai was the work •of two elders—they were to blame, and not tlio Management Committee. The general trend of the argument was that the country had prospered wonderfully, and the ministers' stipends had not kept pace with the rismg standard of living, and tho cheapening of tho sovereign. Dr. Gibb, who has been stressing the great lack of suitable candidates for the ministry and home missionary work, sounded the note! that it was more than likely that good men did not consider the Church as a career on pecuniary grounds, and reminded the Assembly of what John Knox had said to the effect that poor pay meant poor sorvice. One speaker remarked that at one time the country peopfe were poor and the town people were well-to-do. Now those in tho country were well-to-do. The poor people were those in the suburbs of the cities—the men who worked year in and out for £2 10s. to £3 per week, and had to raise a family on it.