What then is the background to the claims of University teachers that their salaries should be increased substantially?

For the information of students, who themselves are vitally concerned in matters which affect the welfare of the University and the community, this is an attempt to outline briefly the problems which face University teachers. University authorities and the Government, in connection with University salaries.

The first factor to be considered is that the University competes for staff in an international market. It is obviously essential that the University in New Zealand shall be as well staffed—that is, staffed with teachers of as high a calibre—as are universities overseas.

That being the case it must compete with those universities for staff. It can only compete on equal terms if it can offer salaries and working conditions comparable with those which obtain in universities elsewhere in English-speaking countries. This simple truism formed the principal argument on which the salary claim just negotiated was based.

Difficult comparison

Nevertheless, it is one thing to assert that university teachers here must be paid salaries comparable with those paid in other universities within the Commonwealth; it is quite another thing to arrive at a satisfactory basis of comparison. Mere comparison of salaries in equal currency units is by no means the only criterion.

Is the university professor in England on a salary or £2150 better or worse off than his New Zealand counterpart on the same salary? What is his standard of living on that sum? What are his opportunities for earning additional monies, e.g., by external examining (which often adds considerably to the income of senior English University teachers)? How does his superannuation scheme compare with that which operates in New Zealand? What additional value will he place on his freedom to move about among his colleagues in other English and Continental Universities, in comparison to the isolation of his counterpart in New Zealand?

All these questions and a number of others will have to be answered before it can be decided what amount of salary in New Zealand will be sufficient to tempt the man who is well in the running for a chair in his subject in England to take the plunge and come out to New Zealand. And what applies to professors applies also mutatis mutandis to other grades of staff.

It is significant that the British Colonial Universities generally offer not only higher salaries than the average English salaries for comparable grades of staff but also very generous provisions for travel and leave.

It is perhaps also significant that the present salaries in the main Australian Universities, converted to sterling, are higher than the corresponding average English salaries; though again questions of the relative cost and standard of living must be settled before any satisfactory comparison can be made.

Enough has been said to indicate both the importance for the university of being able to compete on the overseas market and the difficulty of arriving at a really satisfactory basis for comparison. But it must not be forgotten that university teachers will also be recruited from among New Zealanders; indeed, it is essential that a good proportion of the staff should be New Zealanders.

Of course, it must be ensured that the good New Zealander is paid a sufficient salary to prevent him from drifting overseas too readily; but it is equally important that within New Zealand the university shall be able to compote with other employing bodies for the best men and women to form its teaching staff.

For this reason university salaries cannot be completely dissociated from the New Zealand wage and salary structure; not only must the university not lag behind overseas university salaries, it must not lag behind the general level of salaries paid to persons of similar experience and training to university teachers within New Zealand.

This lag is most likely to occur in inflationary periods such as the present, and especially when inflation in New Zealand is progressing at a more rapid rate than inflation overseas.

Economists have asserted, for example, that during the period 1961-1955 inflation in New Zealand was more rapid than inflation in England. If this is correct a simple parity of salaries with English salaries throughout the period in question might not have been in the best interests of the university. This consideration, too, may account for the current disparity between Australian and English salaries.

But a further factor occurs here, which university teachers may dislike but which they cannot ignore. This is that, since the majority of university finance comes from the Government, no Government can be expected to view with favour a movement of university salaries which puts them completely out of line with the general wage and salary structure of New Zealand, and particularly with the general wage and salary structure of the State services.

Low State salaries

It is, of course, arguable that the salaries paid in the State services are at the present time far too low; or perhaps rather that there is still a totally inadequate margin for skill, professional training and responsibility. Nevertheless, New Zealanders appear to approve, if they do not actively demand, a relatively egalitarian scale of wages and salaries.

Therefore, though university teachers believe quite firmly that it would be in the best interests of the university if it could compete on equal terms with overseas universities, even if it meant raising professorial salaries to the £3,250 now offered by (to take an extreme example) the University of Hong Kong, they realise that it is asking a lot of any Government that it should agree to pay [unclear: a] particular class of persons, out of the public funds, higher salaries than those which are paid to any but the top few permanent heads.

The remedy of course would be to pay all permanents heads from £3,500 upwards; and indeed a very strong case could be made for this. A really effective public demand for the best possible university in this country might well provide the starting point for a general spreading of margins throughout all State-paid services.

Indeed, the Government has committed itself to the view that a spreading of margins to a certain extent would be desirable; yet its current salary increases hardly seem to go far enough in this direction. One cannot help suggesting that a bolder policy would undoubtedly pay very substantial dividends in the long run in the efficiency of the State services and the well being of the country.

Enter mediocrity?

However, that is a battle yet to be fought; and it must be fought very largely by attacking the current public opinion which favours egalitarianism (dare one soy it?) mediocrity.

For it is mediocrity against which the battle for higher university salaries must ultimately be aimed. The University of New Zealand has up till now been well served in the quality and devotion of her teachers. Her students have held their own in the universities of other lands and have carried off their fair share of the highest honours.

But competent authorities assert that the competition within the English speaking countries for university staff will be greater during the next ten of fifteen years than it has ever been before. In that competition the University of New Zealand cannot afford to lag behind. If she does, the drain of the best people from the existing staff will increase, and the inflow will inevitably be of people at a lower level of competence.

It is against this simple truth that the other factors that have been mentioned must be weighed.

If New Zealand is to choose mediocrity in her university system for the future, it is up to everyone to see that the choice, if it is made at all, is a conscious one, and that the Government, the political parties, and the public, have the consenuence of the choice placed fairly and squarely before them.