TEACHERS' SALARIES
-[To the Editor of the Sisi.crAion.]
Sm,—May I raise a protest against what seems to me your undue partiality to the Teachers in the matter of the cuts in their salaries which the Government felt it necessary to make in view of the financial stress in the country Without any details before me, am 1 not right in stating that pre-War salaries were raised at least one hundred and fifty per cent. after the War ? It seemed to some of us that, though a rise was essential upon what had been the meagre payments obtainable before the War, nevertheless, the Burnham Com- mittee stole a march upon the nation at a time when it was distracted with the aftermath of the War and could ill afford the vast sums then and ever since to be raised from taxation.
Have we not been groaning under the eighty million!, 14, be mutually raised for education instead of the eleven millions of long ago ? Then, when the May Committee recommended in the interests of the State cuts and reductions in salaries of twenty per cent., loud were the outcries of the teachers throughout the land. And finally, when these were reduced to twelve and a half per cent., one might have thought the profession was going into bankruptcy instead of. enjoying stipends of hundreds a year, payable monthly to the day and secured on the resources of the State, with a gratuity on retire- ment and a proportionately ample pension with which to enjoy a _green old age. Compared with many a struggling tradesman who has to contribute heavily to these comfortable -emoluments, and often has to wait for months and years to have his own bills paid, one thinks the teachers very well off and in small need of sympathy or of promises that the cuts shall be made good as soon as there is a turn in the tide of the nation's circumstances.---I am, Sir, &c., OLD READER.
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