WORKLESS GIRLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 32, 7 February 1936, Page 11

WORKLESS GIRLS.

FINANCIAL PLIGHT. DANGER OF IMMORALITY. PLEA TO MINISTER. Faced as they were with very little chance of financial assistance, some unemployed girls were being helped towards immorality, said Mrs. Meakin, member of a deputation which waited yesterday on the Minister of Employment and Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong. "Why should they pay the unemployment tax and get nothing for it!" she asked. "It is not good for the morals of a woman to get 7/6 a week with which to keep herself. It is simply leading to immorality." The same point was made by Miss Ryan, secretary of the New Zealand Working Women's Movement, representatives of which formed the deputation. The present Auckland Unemployed Women's Emergency Committee could offer only two kinds of work — factory work, which required experience, and house work. For the latter the absurd rate of pay had been offered of 5/ a week. She knew of cases where a girl received that amount, and got a half-holiday once a fortnight. That was not enough. Every girl, rightly or wrongly, but understandably, liked to dress as well her neighbour. If she did not she loat her self-respect in her own eyes. How could she do that on 5/ a week? How, indeed, could she dress herself at all? She would naturally want to visit her people. How much would she have left of 5/ when she had paid her tram fares? There were organisations in the city which mended men's shoes. She knew of girls with only cardboard in the soles of their shoes, yet there was no organisation in the city to mend girls' shoes. "It is approaching medieval cruelty to expect unemployed girls to live on nothing," she added.