NOTES 



Proposed Union of Scientific Workers 



We continue to receive replies to our notice regarding the 



emoluments of scientific workers ; and they emphasise the 



opinions which have already been expressed in the leading 



article of the April number of this Quarterly. For example, 



one worker, a London graduate with first-class honours, who 



has published original research work, and is now a demonstrator 



working two or three days a week, and who also gives two 



courses of post-graduate lectures with demonstrations, and does 



other work, receives the generous salary of fifty pounds per 



annum — much less than most unskilled labourers will work 



for. We hear that in one British university, out of two 



hundred members of the junior staff in all departments (that is, 



all members of the teaching staff who are not full professors), 



not more than six receive a stipend greater than two hundred 



and fifty pounds a year. There appears also to be some fear 



amongst junior staff workers that if they divulge particulars 



of their salaries they will lose their posts ; and in one case we 



are informed that some highly specialised workers seem even 



to have lost the ambition ever to earn a reasonable wage. In 



addition to the poorness of the pay, complaints are made 



regarding the entire absence of any provision for adequate 



pension, and also regarding the state of serfdom in which men 



of science are kept under boards and committees composed of 



persons who frequently have no qualifications for the exercise 



of such authority. The whole picture is a melancholy, not to 



say a disgraceful, one for so wealthy a country, which also 



imagines that it possesses the hegemony of the world. On the 



other hand, much sympathy is expressed on behalf of any 



endeavours that may be made to remedy these evils, and men 



of science appear to be awakening to the fact that they should 



attempt some combined effort in this direction. We note 



especially an excellent article on the Income and Prospects of 



the Mathematical Specialist by Prof. G. H. Bryan, F.R.S., in 



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