BRAINS NOT WANTED

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 555, 6 August 1920, Page 2

BRAINS NOT WANTED

BRAWN BEST PAID. COUNTY ASSISTANT ENGINEER. AND OPULENT NAVVIES. Not having a union to raise their salaries even to the level of the wages received by navvies, bricklayers, carpenters and other 45-hour-a----week folk earning £1 a day, many brain workers are receiving very low remuneration. Commenting on the resignation of the assistant-engineer, Mr. J. T. M. Brewster, the chairman of the Franklin County Council (Cr. W. Claud Motion) said the council would probably have to pay more to a successor than they had paid Mr. Brewster.

The salary paid to Mr. Brewster was £230 a year, and the finance oommittee recommended that applications for a successor be invited at p. salary of £3OO. The engineer's salary was also raised from £450 to £SOO per year. Cr. R. T. Reid remarked that nt th» finance meeting works were reported on which would cost £IOO,OOO (this total included loans and grants), but if the council had to pay the ordinary engineers' commission of from 5 to JVi per cent, it would cost the council much more than £SOO a year. Mr. Brewster is the second official the council has lost recently, and members considered that as the cost of living had risen so enormously, and as wages for unskilled labour were now so high, it was only reasonable that highly skilled men shou'd be given increases. If brains and ability were required they would have to be paid for proportionately, both by local bodies and private firms.