"LIVING WAGES"

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 90, 13 October 1931, Page 13

"LIVING WAGES"

SALARIES OF CLERGY

"We must never rest until we have given our clergy a living wage-." This was the appeal made by the Bishop of London, Dr. WinningtonIngram, at the Church Assembly at Westminster in the course of the de-1 bate on the report of the committee j appointed to review the financial burdens of the clergy (reports a London exchange). Dr. Ingram asked why the Church had not taken to heart what he believed to be a very great scandal. Ho thought that one reason was that the poverty of some of the clergy was hidden by the smiling self-control of the people who never.complained about it. ' . ' - ' •: . In one house in the East t End of London, said the Bishop, he found that the clergyman's wife was housemaid, cook, and nurse to the whole establishment. Many thinking clergy were puzzled and distressed by the very early and improvident marriages of the young clergy. ■ | "I am bound to say, said Dr. Ingram, "it is rather a shock to mo when I spend £1000 on the training of a young man to be informed, a few weeks after he has been ordained, that he is going to get married. I am one! of those soft-hearted people who say, 'God bless you and be happy.' " He was afraid, however, that happiness did not come in some cases. He knew that people had come.for help to the. Poor Clergy Fund within five years of being ordained. j The Bey. H. Gathorne Crabtree said that the poverty of some incumbents was distressing; Some years' ago' he stayed with a country vicar and his wife, and their daughter danced joyfully into the room and announcod that they were going to have steak pie for dinner. He learned, afterwards that that was the first time they had had meat that month. . '