WHAT DO YOO EARN?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11756, 21 July 1916, Page 4

WHAT DO YOO EARN?

How much are your sendees worth? That is, how much money ought you to get for what you dot* an American paper). Kverybody is rated, from the office boy to tho hand president. And yet every once in a wmlo something happens to upset the whole scheme. And we realise that money is a most imperfect standard. It doe 3 not at all represent the value of one's services to the community. Nobody did more for the human race than such workers as Homer, Socrates and Kant. And about all they got was their keep, and not much of that. There are faithful toilers right now. Bmjths making useful things out or iron, thinkers devising wonderful ideal plans for human betterment, and they will probably never enjoy higher wages than enough for board and clothes. Charlie Chaplin gets £134,000 a year, for one year anyway. He is getting the highest wages paid to any mortal, and it is for acting the fool. He is worth it to his employers. He's probably worth twice as much to them, because people pay many times more than that to see him kick ladies in the face.

It ia hard to estimate the money value of such a star as Geraldine Farrar. Her wages are not only colossal, but every move she makes means money. Jess Wiliard, after his last fight, was straightway engaged by a showman at a salary of over £20,000, Is Prize-Fighter Wiliard worth twice as much to mankind as the President of the United States? Is charming Geraldine worth four times, and is slapstick Oharlio worth over nine times as much to us as Woodrow Wilson? _ Nobody begrudges these celebrities thoir gains. They come by them a great deal more honestly than one whose sole title to a million dollars a year is that his great-grandfather bought up a lot of New York City property and held on to it. But the sensible conclusion of tho whole matter is that money is not the object which an intelligent mind can make its chief aim. The world's best work is not done for money. There are college professors, devoted mothers, skillful craftsmen and conscientious politicians who are pouring real values into the race, for which they receive, a stipend wholly out of proportion to the importance of their work.

Money-making is a game. Only a few can succeed at it. Getting famous enough to draw £20,000 a year is just as much a gambling proposition as finding a gold mine in Nevada. But being a real success, being of genuine service to humanity, developing a great soul and noble chniccter, gathering a lot of real friends and gaining the sincere love of honest hearts—those things are not in any wiso gambling. The rules of real success aro plain and simple, old as philosophy and tried out and proven again and apain by humanity. Even a fool can understand them. So don't be cvnical. Don't talk about the luckx getting all tho good things of life. They don't. The real prizes of existence continue to go, as thev alwavs have gone, to those who do their work conscientiously, who themselves wipelv to events, who love in loyalty, who submit to discipline and live in cheerful hope.