CURRENT COMMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 6 August 1907, Page 2

CURRENT COMMENT.

Bank-clerks lire useful persons. Indeed, in our peculiar system of existence they an- quite iiidispensiblc. The public does not really know much about bankclerks. The public knows that the average young niau in a bank is wellbred and well-dressed, that he does not have to go to work at seven in the morning, and that he sometimes shines socially. Ilis work seems simple to the outsider or even to the bank client. He must be accurate absolutely. If he isn't he is expected to pay for his inaccuracies out of his own salary. It is the salary part we want to' talk about. If one judges a bank's riches by the oniateuess of the building it is house,l in. the average New Zealand bank is (|„j„g tolerably well. Banks are not benevolent institutions. The clerk in the Bank of .New Zealand and in many oilier banks represented in this country is not allowed to marry until lie is earning .C2OH a year. of eourne he should not marry even on this, but the point is. that he is compelled bv his employers to desist from matrimony. 'I lie obvious idea of the authorities is that a married man earning oidy the barest, living -wage might be disposed to embezzlement, so it is best—for the bank—to keep a man single and honest. Promotion in hanking circles, as in other circles nil-times, is not always a ques-t-ion of merit. There may he political influences at work even in a large monetaiy institution, so that it is quite possible in connection with the marriage piohlbition that a hank-clerk's salary roulrt be kept below £21)0 until he was either too old or too uninterested to get married at all. It is 011 the whole something of a sin for a corporation to ill-range its servants' affairs by arbitrary laws. Under this particular private law a man could be forced to celiall his life—unless he left the bank s employ. The question of pro-fit-sharing has been a favorite one with trades unionists lately, but there is less justification for the trades unionist than there would he for the bank-elerk to demand a large share of the profit from corporations known to be often excessively wealthy.