"Salient" reporters found City Councillor Gaudin of the Library Committee affable if vague, when approached for reasons of the recent curtailment of hours at the Public Library. He stated "There is no hope of opening for full hours until after the war, or such time as there are sufficient staff available." Over forty employees have recently left the library. We asked what in his opinion accounted for the librarians leaving—"Irregular hours are the chief reason," said Mr. Gaudin.

Librarians, he told us, work for thirty-eight hours a week, and previously there was a roster for night shifts and Sundays. As this did not appear to us to be sufficient cause for such a grave shortage of staff we made further Inquiry into the conditions. Wages are awarded on a grading basis and £220 is the maximum for a branch librarian. The majority of those who leave are fully trained and seek jobs with better working hours—and, we thought, perhaps for the better pay.

"Would it not be possible," we asked, "to raise the wages to compensate for the irregular working hours?"

"We are bound by the Corporation staff," answered Councillor Gaudin. "It is difficult to differentiate. and to raise wages in one department would affect two thousand other employees. The Council acts in self-defence in order not to jeopardise the whole system. I admit the primary importance of the libraries as an educational factor, but you must realise that the Council has the matter well in view."

Here we could not but feel sceptical: by what vivid stretch of imagination could one see the girls on the trams objecting to a rise for the underpaid girls who work in the library?

Of the two possible solutions to the problem it seems that the Council should have chosen the one to benefit the public, and this would have been to better the conditions of the librarians.