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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 254, 26 April 1912, Page 4

THE UNDERPAID CLERK. Throughout the universal labor tumult which is upsetting the world, the innumerable clerkly class has stood aloof. The class numbers probably as largely as the "horny-handed," it is more in need of better conditions, and it is just as necessary as are the men who do the agitating. In the great waterside disputes in Australian cities, it had been so much the custom of clerks to obey that they did not murmur when thev were instantly if temporarily made into wharf laborers. Clerks have avoided unionism, presumably because they do not care to follow in the footsteps of men who are suppositiously (but quite wrongly) presumed to be socially inferior. There is, indeed, a natural enough class feeling between the man with the soiled hands who may get £a a week and the socially "superior" man whose hands are not soiled who earns £3. The first has attained his desires by organisation, and is quite dissatisfied. The second, whose capacity, for organisation, due to—shall we say?—a better education, might be deemed to be superior, remains in exactly the same position ho occupied before the organisation of the "work- ; ers." Tu many parts of New Zealand at the moment the clerks' champions are writing mild letters of protest to the papers in relation to the position clerks , occupy, but the clerk himself is doing no- j thing whatever to help himself. No reforms can be effected except through the class which needs the reform. Unfortunately the rather silly disposition of parents to regard clerkly work for their children as "superior" to creative occupations has led to an over-supply of clerks. There is never the slightest difficulty in obtaining boy clerks or girl typists, although there is frequent difficulty in obtaining bricklayers or carpenters at high wages. The "respectability" of the former jobs is the reason. While labor in the creative industries is hard to obtain, the position is in the hands of the men who labor. If there were a shortage of clerks, the price of clerical work would at once rise, clerks would show independence and very probably open discontent. Tn the few instances where clerks have "unionised" the excess of the scheme has been problematical. In the field of creative labor, it has been the custom to concede that every man working at a specific occupation is entitled to the same wage as every other man, however valuable th-e ability of the individuals. It is clear that the most minute classification would be necessary among clerical workers, and that a wage scale that would be acceptable to all kinds of clerks would be impossible. Until it is possible to accurately gauge the mental and physical capacity of human workers, either manual or clerical, a common rate for good and indifferent alike is intolerable and unworkable, though there can be no objection to a minimum or living wage. It has been suggested that a Royal Commission should sit in order to investigate the conditions of clerks and their wages. It would be very wrong to set up such a commission because persons who are not clerks suggest it. In the absence of complaint from the enormous body of clerical workers it is clear that conditions cannot change. In theory, because there are not organised clerical complaints, the clerk is quite content to be underpaid so long as he remains the social "superior" of the man who earns much more money. In the face of the availability of men and women to over-fill all the vacancies that ever occur in the clerks' world no redross is likely.