CLERICAL PAY.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR "1 SIR,—In your issue of April 3rd, writing of elementary-school teachers, you say : "There is no profession that deserves more than the teaching profession high pay. . . . Unless teachers are well paid their ranks will not be filled by the best types of men and women. The teaching profession in the elementary schools must be made much more attractive." Is not that equally true of the clergy and their pay ?
I was thirty-eight years vicar of a Northern parish of 5,000 people. I got together some .230,000 for various parish works. For over twenty years I worked hard also at diocesan work of various kinds. When I resigned at the age of sixty4right the parish and diocese together raised about .2500 for "testi- monials." Pray forgive me for mentioning this, which I do merely to show that I was not altogether a "failure." For about thirty-six years of my time there I had an excellent schoolmaster. He recently stayed a couple of nights with me in this country parish, of which I am now rector, and we compared notes. His school has an average attendance of about 400, and he superintends a night school. His annual income is about .2550. Mine was about .2320 in the North, and is here about .2220, in both oases with a house, on which I have to pay " dilapidations." We will suppose that he and I were about equally well educated, though in somewhat different directions. I venture to presume that we have done equally good work. How comes it about that he is paid some .f..300 a year more than I am ? Simply because he is a member of a strong "Union," which I am not and cannot be, and he has a great force of "law" behind him, because the law compels every child to attend school, whereas only those who care to attend church. Hence his better pay. But I cannot see that he has any real right to be better paid than I am. And when I find that he is rated only on the house in which he lives, whereas I am rated not only on my house but also on more than half of my earned income, I am filled with a strong sense of the injustice of this treatment, which is not helpful to the due performance of the delicate and often difficult work I am set to do. The Government has acknowledged the injustice of the treatment of the tithe-owning clergy, but the help it offers is merely insult added to injury. It perpetuates the injustice, and offers a tiny dole, which in my case would amount to only a few pounds a year. Will you not use your great influence on behalf of the poor clergy, who need help at least as muck as the elementary-school teachers?—I am, Sir, &c., PAGANUS.
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