DOMESTICS FOR NEW ZEALAND,

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 122, 24 May 1909, Page 5

DOMESTICS FOR NEW ZEALAND,

WHAT THE SALVATION ARMY THINKS. "THOUSANDS WILLING TO GO." (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, April 16. This week I had an interview with the head of the Emigration Department of the Salvation Army, apropos of the movement started by a number of Christchurch ladies for a system of free immigration of domestic servants from the Old Country to New Zealand. At the meeting of ladies in ChristchUTch it was stated by several speakers that large numbers of girls In England would be willing to go to New Zealand if their fares were paid. I asked the Salvation Army expert if this was the case. "Yes," he said. "There are thousands of women and girls in this, country who see no prospects at all here, and whose horizon is naturally limited by the social conditions of this country, who would not hesitate to accept the offer of situations in Xew Zealand under reasonable conditions, if facilities for getting out there were provided. They would require to be trained for domestic service. That could be done either before leaving England or on the way out. A kitchen could be fitted up on board for the long journey out, and proper training given by someone accustomed to colonial conditions. "11l the work of our own Emigration Department we always have more girls ready to go out to the colonies than we have money to send. Those that we do send go chiefly to Canada, but it is chiefly a question of cost. If the passage were paid, there would be no difficulty in getting plenty of decent girls to go to New Zealand —girls who would never be domestic servants here, but who would willingly enter service in the colonies. From my own experience in emigration work I know that there are thousands of girls in this country who are welleducated and intelligent, with perhaps a little income of their own, and who have been brought up with the idea of becoming lady helps and companions. That type of girl would never tackle domestic service in- this country, but she would not hesitate to do so in any of the colonies. The reason is, of course, that here she would be unclassed by becoming a domestic servant; in the colonies she would not. You see exactly the same sort of thing amongst the men. A voting man who would not willingly take to manual labour here will take off his coat and tackle the first job that comes to hand when he goes to the colonies." "Suppose that the girls when they reach New Zealand find that there are other openings in life there more attractive than domestic service, as the Xew Zealand girls appear to have done, what is to prevent them abandoning domestic service in that case? -, ■'Nothing. It just comes to this—that the mistress must be prepared to recognise the fact that her house is a matrimonial bureau. That is what happens in this country, and it is perfectly natural. Tlie average domestic servant here in England goes into service at 16 years of age or thereabouts. She tries two or three situations, remaining in one of them for, perhaps, three or fouT years. Then when she is 24 or 25 she gets married. It is inconvenient for the mistress; but as the supply of domestics is plentiful here, she presently gets suited again. "And that is what will happen with girls sent out to the colonies. We send them with the idea that they shall get married and start homes of their own. It is not their mission in life to be domestic servants, and in sending theni out it is not our mission merely to supply well-to-do ladies with servants. We want the girls to have a decent chance in life—a chance to get married and have homes of their own. And we look to that, and to the colonies' need of population, as our primary objects in sending girls overseas. We certainly do not want to condemn them-to a lifetime of domestic service. As I have said, the mistresses must be content to realise that their ! houses are matrimonial bureaux." I also asked the High Commissioner his opinion of the Christchurch ladies' proposal. He was very doubtful as to the possibility of free passages being granted. If ladies in Xew Zealand cared 1 to pay the passages of domestic servants from England, plenty of suitable girls could be had in this country, but they could not be bound to remain in the situations they were brought out to fill. Tn the circumstances, he doubted whether anything would come of the proposal. Meanwhile, he is sending out each month a good number of domestics, who each pay £10 toward their passage money, the Government paying the balance. -„ Finally, I asked the opinion of an officer on one of the direct steamers regardI ing the servant problem. "We take out j a good many domestics from England to I New Zealand." he said, "but I am quite I sure that what they go out there for is not domestic service, but matrimony. Why, most of them are engaged to be married by the time the ship .reaches New Zealand 1"