AMONG OURSELVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 195, 19 August 1927, Page 14

AMONG OURSELVES.

A WEEKLY BUDGET.

(By CONSTANCE CLYDE.)

THE BUSINESS WOMAN.

Long ago, Charlotte Bronte, in one of her novels, "Shirley," pointed out that Solomon's virtuous woman, who was far above rubies, was no mere housewife, but actually a tradeswoman. She is described as buying and selling fields, and also acting as manufacturer, according to the methods of the time. Woman is, in fact, by Nature, a trader, and once she is trained keeps better to the limits of her managerial ability than man does. If we see her handling big money in the markets we may be sure it is because she is able to do so. Some time ago we heard of Mis 3 Gordon Holmes, once a typiste at £1 a week, and now London's first woman stockbroker, handling fortunes and going to Africa to negotiate immense sums. Now we hear of a Miss Irma D. Eggleston, who is described as the most "highly skilled Liberty Bond specialist in Wall Street, trading some £6,000,000 worth of bonds." The "London Daily Express" considered her a portent of the new age and worthy of a whole column. There are now quite a number of financiers of our own sex in London, some on their own, others salaried at more than a thousand pounds per annum. Yet, as someone pertinently remarks, the numerous women in England who can bring up a family of six or seven children on a wage round about three pounds a week are perhaps greater financiers still! In that case, there must be some notable linanciers among the women of New Zealand also. PREDOMINANCE OF MEN. This sub-title alludes to predominance in numbers only, and has nothing to do with authority. A list is given us of countries where men are numerically more than women, also others where the reverse holds good, and the result is to show us that numerical predominance lias nothing whatever to do with power or absence of power. In Italy, Switzerland, Scotland, England, Germany, European Russia, Chili, and Greece, the proportion is in favour of women, while to these we must add France, Norway, and Sweden. Are those countries on the whole more ruled by our sex than Canada, New Zealand, British India, South Africa, Australia, the Argentine, and other countries where the men are more numerous? Woman neither rules as a queen in countries where she is few in numbers, nor bands together to oust man in lands where she outnumbers him. OLD-TIME SUFFRAGETTES. The agitation for equal franchise passed off in England without disturbance, though there was some idea that suffragette tactics might be resorted to. The memories of historians are stirred, however, to recall a besieging of the House of Lords in 1738, women being the besiegers. It was an undemocratic age, and had not these been duchesses, it is probable that gaol would have been the reward of their unduchess-like behaviour. There had been anger in the country concerning Spanish depredations abroad,

and for some reason or other the peers did not wish the peeresses to listen to the debate. They proposed to fill up their gallery with commoners. When denied admittance, a bevy of duchesses, countesses, and other such scions of the Vere de Vere caste, failed to show the "repose" of which Tennyson in later years was to speak, and kicked at the door. They got in finally by keeping quite still for half an hour, upon which the officials, thinking that none of their sex could be speechless for such a period, opened the doors. In thronged the ladies, and took their seats. Says Lady Mary Wortley Montague, recording the episode: "Their noisy laughs and quite visible contempt is supposed to be the true reason why Lord Harvey spoke so miserably." This indeed seems extremely probable, unless masculine human nature was very different then to what it is now.

WHERE COMPULSION SEEMS GOOD. Child welfare work and the study of the child mind continue, and in the opinion of some people are both somewhat overdone. Nevertheless much good, no doubt, will be done by the recent International Council of Women in Geneva,, when delegates from all countries told how far they had advanced in true child care. Think of Sweden, where attendance at evening classes is compulsory on all young people, boys and girls, up to sixteen, and, in some localities, up to eighteen! The rule must be kept even as regards domestic helps, or young girla who have married. They must still "go to school." In Germany, some compulsory enactments of this kind are being held over until the private schools can be abolished, the country not, as yet, being able to enforce this extreme measure. A Canadian delegate to the conference, however, deprecated this measure, pointing out that all improvements could be made without interference with private entablishments. Nevertheless some countries are kept from such suppression only by the question of money, the State being unwilling or unable to face the extra cost involved. While New Zealand has much to be proud of, one cannot but wonder that there should be so strong a tendency here to make laws against child delinquents, while we have no compulsory laws to assist boy or girl at the difficult age.