THE WAGES OF INTELLECT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3145, 27 November 1922, Page 7

THE WAGES OF INTELLECT.

(London Daily Telegraph, September 15). A commission, of which M. Henri Bergson is president, has, according to a telegram irom Geneva published yesterday, suggested that the Council of the League of Nations should authorise an inquiry into the position of intellectual work in the different countries of the world. M. Bergson believes intellectual life to be menaced by the complete upsetting throughout the world of the balance between brain work and manual work. He would like the League to consider what remedies may be devised. Of the facts of the brain-workers' position, at any rate in Europe and America., there is evidence in plenty. The difficulty will be to get, a conspectus of" the whole problem, if problem it may be termed. The capacity and output of the manual workers can with certainty enough be forecasted and assessed. The reward of their labor is determined also by factors which, though subject to variation, are known. With the intellectual worker there is no ready means of arriving at corresponding information. He is inevitably an individualist, and cannot be ticketed with a common measure applicable to all of his class. Moreover, the very qualities that distinguish him from the manual worker, and make him of value to the community, tend also to isolate him. Added to that is a natural and mental aversion from anything like combination on trade union lines. That such combinations do exist, and that we have, for example, in the Bar and the medical profession two of the most highly protected vocations in the world, does not obscure the fact that the members of those combinations depend upon their own exertions and ability in a very special sense. Combination does nothng towards that levelling-up of reward which was, presumably, in the mind of M. Bergson's Commission. But with other workers in the intellectual field the level is all too painfully apparent. Such men as those engaged in our universities in teaching and in research are poorly paid, judged by almost any standard. In comparison with their value to the commonwealth, which cannot be set out in. terms of monetary reward, their treatment is shameful. The community is profiteering in intellect. It takes advantage of a man's love of his work to withhold reasonable payment. To be sure, the work itself is its own reward, for it is a part of life itself. In that it differs from the heavy or irksome toil of many manual workers, for whom the zest of life begins when work is done. Many a scientific worker has starved himself to provide means to pursue his researches, and thus to benefit the world. But that is no excuse for paying him so ill that his mind is burdened with petty cares. On the other hand, there are men to whom reward' i 6 very much a. secondary consideration. Without realising it, they are helping to fix the standards of miserable pay upon their fellow-work-era. Obviously it would be fantastic to attempt to reward all men according to the value of their services to the State or to mankind, but it would be no more than practical wisdom to see Hhat the intellectual workers upon whom so much depends were permitted to work in circumstances free from the pinpricks of small financial worries. Like most general statements involving no acceptance of particular responsibility, that needs no argument to commend it. What remedy is the League of Nations likely to discover? In the course of their discussions the League may find it interesting to consider the position of brain workers where taxation is concerned. For it may be argued that there is injustice in the fact that as things are at present the income that a man derives solely from the work of his brain is, taxed equally with income derived from trade or manufacture. This, at first sight, may not seem unreasonable, but its unfairness is perceived when it is seen that, unlike the manufacturer, the brain workers can claim no generous allowance for repairs and renewals. He must go on year after year using the same delicate organism, his brain. If he takes a holiday or a rest for its renewal and repair he must bear the full cost. The manufacturer, however, is excused taxation on the sums expended on new machinery. It is capital expenditure. Is the brain worker's holiday any less capital expenditure? Indeed, he is using up capital all the time, for if it breaks down, his brain, unlike machinery, cannot be replaced. Nor can the brain worker overtaken by ill-health retire from active work, put in a manager, and continue to draw an income. He is living on capital all his active life, Commonly his income is trifling compared with that of the man of commerce. Yet he is taxed as no tradesman or commercial undertaking is taxed. In such a state of things it might seem that the brain worker has reasonable cause for complaint, whatever one may think of his chances of getting the grievance removed.