LONDON CLERKS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1047, 23 December 1882, Page 3

LONDON CLERKS.

A conference of city clerks was held I lately in Bishopsgates street, with a view to the statement of their case and the consideration of the best means to be adopted for the amelioration of their position. The chairman, himself a clerk, I pointed out that the labour mniket, in the j article of clerk and book keepers, w«s considerably overstocked, the result of which was to clerkly wages to the very lowest level that would suffice 1o keep body and soul together. As an instance of the redundance of available lahour, he mentioned that his own employers had, the oth«r day, advertised for a ch-rk ut a salary of £BO a year, and that there had been more than 600 applicants for the post. Anoilver speaker supporting the views of the chair, incidenla'ly remarked that parents were beginning to discover that fustian was quite as respectable as broadcloth, and that it paid quite as well, and, indeed, better. This was supplemented by another clerk, who said that for tha last five j ears he had been bookkeeper to a wine merchant, nt the weekly wage of 255, and that, during the whole of that period he had tried his hardest to obtain morn remunerative employment, but had failed to do so, although he possessed excellent testimonials. The orator who next rose considered the wine merchant's clerk a lucky man, inasmuch as he himself was a ■ lawyer's clerk at a guinea a week, and had a wife and five children dependent upon him. Yet another individual present threw up. metaphorically speaking, the sponge altogether, observing that he hsd almost arrived at the corc'usion that the notorious question whetber life were worth living must be answered by many thousands of peopU in the negative. He himself did not se* much to live for ; and he certainly had not much to live on.' Ultimately a resolution was unanimously passed to the effect that considering the over-crowded state of the labor market, so far as clerks are concerned, the large number of these out of employment; and the consequent low rate of wages, the meeting strongly impressed upon parents the advisability of bringing ud their sons to other occupations of a more lucrative character, in which th*y will bo more independent of their employprs, and all the better for good hard active work.