THE POORLY PAID PROFESSIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 299, 9 March 1928, Page 8

THE POORLY PAID PROFESSIONS

UNIVERSITY professors, unenviable as is their lot in regard to remuneration, are not the only professional men with a grievance in this country. Dr. C. C. Farr, F.R.S., D.Sc., of Canterbury College, makes public his complaint that managing clerks in city offices receive as much salary as university professors, and drapers’ assistants as much as lecturers, and he boldly declares that the professors and lecturers at Canterbury College are “scandalously underpaid.” The same may be said by many doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, accountants and other professional men who are not in practice for themselves, but who are in State and private employ on salary. The truth is that this country has not yet learned the wisdom of the adage that the labourer is worthy of his hire when considering the remuneration for skilled service. Men who have studied for years to gain degrees and diplomas enabling them to practise professions are paid salaries which are often exceeded by the wages of artisans and even unskilled workers. Commerce offers greater rewards than the halls of learning; the man who measures yards of tape across the counter is as well paid, in many cases, as is the man who uses the tape and theodolite of the surveyor. The result is that young men of conspicuous ability, who should remain as invaluable assets to the country, are trained by poorly-paid professors and lecturers only to take their departure to other lands which more adequately recognise the worth of high qualifications. Such instances are too numerous to be regarded with complacence. Young New Zealanders are to be found exercising their skill, and profiting by their New Zealand training, in almost every part of the Empire and in many foreign lands as well. What this means to the country of their birth and training may not easily be estimated. This emigration of our best will continue until New Zealand learns that only the best is worth while —and that it is worth paying for.