AMONG OURSELVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 24, 29 January 1926, Page 13

AMONG OURSELVES.

A WEEKLY BUDGET. (By CONSTANCE CLYDE.I "WHERE WOMEN CANNOT EARN." It used to be said of Treland that it was a country which the young in :i were leaving, always a bad sign. Many of us probably believe that this ii'le held good up tn quite lately at L-α-t. If Professor* Oldham of the Statistics! Society is to believed, however, the drift ias now gone the other way— to the young women instead cf the young j men. Since 1891 he states "the proportion of males in the adult population lof Ireland has been increasing, for Irej land is not a country where women can earn a living. The dearth of female j employment induces excessive female j emigration, and thus strikes at the J homes of the nation. The survival of I the Irish race in Ireland." lie says emphatically, "depends on whether we can arrest the disease of the male surj plus." This argument is being used hy ' many to oppose the fierce attempt being : made to krep women out of the better j places in the Civil Service. Professor Oldham has remarked that "the male adults (who draftefl this bill (to oust women i ! were determined to oust adult women from that source of employment." So long have we heard, however, that i: is men which this country is losing that it may be some time before people ' realise that it is the women's, turn now ;.o be considered. j WHAT AUSTRIAN WOMEN WANT. The National Council of Austrian ■ .Women handed a petition lately to the Austrian Government in which women ' police were demanded. At the same ! time the members were aware that, ' owing to financial stress, this petition j could not at present W successful. ] Meanwhile, individual "women are mak- I ing progress in the law. Noteworthy is Dr. Marian Beth, at first a doctor of philosophy, who also entered the law when first, immediately after the revolution, this profession was opened to our sex. She" hopes in two' years' time to become an advocate. iShe is much interested in peace and women's welfare. She 1 is married to a university professor, j being also the mother of two children, j There is also in the political sphere a j woman member of parliament. Frau. I Olga Rudel-Zeynek. a great social worker, who lias drafted at least one bill for the improvement of women and children. Altogether Austria seems far removed from the time when a few of her feminine population were society butterflies and the rest overworked and j somewhat despised. | THE MARRIED WOMAN TEACHER, j That education authorities may dis- | miss a married woman teacher if only j they adduce a reason in which they I themselves do not believe has been the ! decision in the Fennel case in the Old j Country. When such authorities force a married teacher to resign their action is illegal if they allege inefficiency due to the new status,<bni quite legal and if thgjr assert that their action isi-ttaken t<j make: room for the i younger unmarried teacher. Many feminist papers are wondering whether they will carry out this rule.as regards the! men and dismiss ...those married men teachers who many women with money. The "Women's Leader," though itself upholding liberty for women, publishes a letter from Maud Selborne. who takes the opposite view, though her reasons are not those which the educational authorities are now obliged to take. She does not hold that married women should be cleared away to make room for single ones, "but very often a wrong reason is given for a sensible action/" A woman, on the whole, she considers, is not so good a teacher when married as formerly. "No doubt if a public authority were as free as a private employer the reasonable course would be to let the married woman stay on till inefficiency were proved. It is. however, the most difficult thing to get rid of a teacher for inefficiency, because it is very hard to prove it. Under these circumstances, I think it is for the ! general good that women should vacate their posts on marriage." The judge who gave the adverse decision in the Fennel case informed the East Ham electors that "if they did not like it they must elect members who sat at I the next municipal election who would ' reverse the policy." ' t A SPLENDID ANNIVERSARY. The French Bar lias been celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the admission of women to that profession, that nation being only a little later than I our own New Zealand in conceding this right. For many years afterwards New Zealand and France, thus so curiously allied. .stood alone in this particular form of emancipation, and one hopes that sonic mention was made of it at this late celebration. Representatives of the Bars of Holland. Belgium and England wvvc present, the Bar Council of England having officially sent two women barristers to represent it. The law was passed I a. quarter of a century ago by M. Pom- I care as the result of an unsuccessful application by Mdllc Chauvin, who later became first woman member of the Bar. MARY ELIZABETH HALDANE. The "Women's Leader"' reviews the reminiscences of Lord Haldaue's mother, "the record of a hundred years—lß2.s > to 1925."' "I think it is the only record ! of the life of a great woman—though great in private rather than public life —which covers the history of the j women's movement from the earliest I beginning to the present time."' Mrs. Haldane, who always had "the rapture of the forward view." had much to contend with, owing to the narrowness of the time. This gave her strong syin- ! pathy with reform as regards her own sex. "A married woman in my youth had no more position than a cat, but when Mr. Haldane wished to marry mc I felt it was my duty to obey and devote my life to him and his metherleas children." She was always a keen supporter of woman suffrage, and at the age of 84 wrote a letter io the "Times' , on the subject, signing herself ••Octogenarian."