TEACHERS' SALARIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 91, 26 April 1901, Page 3

TEACHERS' SALARIES.

(To tho Editor of tho Times.) Silt, —-Nexvspapor statements arc, xvc suppose, frequently subject to qualification, but even after “ qualification ” by the Secretary for Education, it xvould be interesting to knoxv a good deal more about his statements on the preceding day. (1) IVlmt is a living wage '? Of fifty years ago in England it stands recorded : “ A labourer lives in yonder cot With wife and children five ; Six and sixpence xvcekly got Keeps tho whole seven alive.” Six and sixpence a week xvas therefore a living wage. To-day in Ncxv Zealand Us (id per day is not considered more than a living wage for a limn ; but what woman —except the small minority—gets Us Gd a day, even when doing the most harassing work ? Men ministers and Secretaries for Education even —may consider this just and right. Women, hoxvcver, do not always sec eye to eye with men, and this is just xvliero the necessity comes in for women to bo at or near the helm to protect their oxvn interests. Docs it seem from those last ex cathedra utterances as if women xvcrc to be any moro satisfactorily protected by vicarious methods in the future than they have been in tho past ? Pupil teachers, it appears, are to have equal pay till they reach this living xvage. [lVhatJ] Then women, having done tho same preparatory xvot'k plus one subject, having passed the same examinations, often taking the higher places, are suddenly to be denied their legitimate reward of equal pay for equal work, and are to be sent forth to take up their responsible task, oppressed by a sense of injustice and wrong. Is this the xvay to have work well done ? To encourage enthusiasm and professional pride in our young xvomen tcacljfcs '? But the Minister, or perhaps the Secretary for Education, has evolved—from his oxvn inner consciousness, it would seem, for surely precedent fails—a system of payment, not for xvork done, not for time given, not even for results, hut according to number of dependents ! “ The male teacher xvho had to maintain throe persons besides himself should receix'C double tho salary,” or, as it noxv appears, “ double the increase of salary paid to a woman xvho had to maintain one person and a half in addition to herself.” So,

(2) AVc should like to aslc, if the man who has only one person and a half to maintain is also to be put on half pay for dqing his work honestly and well, what of the teachers who have two and a half, three and a half, four, five units to maintain '? The doctrine seems so astonishing, so impracticable, we should imagine, in its ramifications of detail, as to insure its instant dismissal. Leaving logic on one side, surely common sense teaches us that man or woman should be paid money for value received. If I want a cord of wood cut I do not ask the laborer if he is married, or how much married. I ask him what is . the value of his work, and pay him accordingly. It is the same if I want a house built or a garment made. Why this terrible anxiety to wrong those who have not yet been able to recover their lost independence, to make those unhappy and dissatisfied, who have the welfare and happiness of our little ones so completely in their power ? “ There had been,” continues the report of Mr Hogben’s revelations, “ several representations that a woman’s salary should bo the same as that of a man, but the new scale had not been drawn up with that idea.” Why not? Do the Minister for Education, Mr Hogben, and others therebv intimate that they have drawn up this ideal scheme of theirs in spite of such representations ? If so, I feel sure that a protest will bo forthcoming, not only from women, but from every man who is a father among us. to veto such proposals. —I am, etc., M. H. Sievwright.