How can I check, if on remote server directory is empty or have files?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have a script, which is supposed to run 1 day of the month, connect to remote server certain directory, find files, tar the, and copy

  
 find . -ctime -1 | tar -cvf transfer_dmz_start_monthly.tar *${Today}*.*;
 if [ $? != 0 ]
then
        echo "Cannot create a tar file, the terminated abnormaly"
        exit 1
fi
gzip transfer_dmz_start_monthly.tar
  
 /usr/bin/scp ${DESTSERVNAME}:${MONTH_DEST_DIR}/${TARGZFILE} ${LOCL_FILES_DIR}/cool_${Today}/monthly

Now problem was changed
I have to check if directory has files for Today's day. If not - exit, if yes, then logic above.

Is below code will work?

 if [ `ls | wc -l` = 0 ]
then
   exit
 else

find . -ctime -1 | tar -cvf transfer_dmz_start_monthly.tar *${Today}*.*;

 fi

Or you can find something better.
I am on AIX and have no bash
BTW, it will always have archived files , which I don't need. I.e. probably

 ls ${Today}

Thanks for contribution

2 
cnt=$(ls ${Today}* 2>/dev/null | wc -l)
if [ $cnt -eq 0 ] ; then
   echo 'No files found to archive'
   exit
fi
# run the rest of the script here
3

Why not just evaluate ls 's exit code? Like

ls ${Today}* || exit