POOR CLERGYMEN

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 56, 29 November 1919, Page 9

POOR CLERGYMEN

UNION AND STRIKE TALKED OF. Much comment on tho present scale of clergymen's- salaries has followed a court case at Edmonton, in England. The Judge expressed surprise that a vicar who appeared before him received only ,£204 in thirteen months. "At a rough guess," says &n official of Queen Anne's Bounty. "I should say that there are at least 2000 _ beneficed clergy in England w'-hose net income is less than a year." When ono comes down to.curates, Judge Crawford's surprise becomes almost amazing. Tlie.ro are ovsr 7000 licensed curates in tho Church of England, and their average stipend does not exceed .£3 a week, which is considerably less than a coal-miner's or a mechanic's wage.

Tho Eev. C. W. Lloyd-Evans, vicar of Milbornp St. Andrew, Dorsetshire, has been moved by tilie hardships of some of his brethren, and by the prevailing spirit of protest, to talk of forming a trade union of the clergy with minimum wages and better conditions of employment. Ons incumbent, writing ardently in favour of the scheme, goes so far as to suggest a clerical strike if need be. Another priest writes to him: "The Bishops will do little for us, and caro le*s. Que;n Anne's Bounty should bo compelled to use up their vast unused resources. It is a blood-suoking institution which is nothing more or less than a money-lending concern in which Shylock would bo outclassed."

The reply advanced to this charge is that tho Governors of Queen Anno's Bounty have no unused resources, vast or otherwise, all their money being employed; that the business of lending money to incumbents is a very small part of their transactions and not Bounty work «vt all; and that the clergy who borrow from them in case of need cortainly 'could not get such easy terms anywhere else.