THE SERVANT GIRL PROBLEM.

Bruce Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 21, 8 March 1909, Page 2

THE SERVANT GIRL PROBLEM.

Air A. E. AVilson, hon. secretary of the Christchurch Domestic Workers' Union, has recently contributed to the Lyttelton Times some opinions on the causes of the scarcity of domestic labour which merit consideration. Referring to the proposed remedy of bringing out large numbers oi domestic workers from the old countries, he says : "It seems to us ridiculous to expect immigration alone to settle the problem of household service in this countiy. If Europe could supply thousands of girls fur this purpose numbers of employers would still be in trouble, because the immigrants must be composed of two classes—the qualified and the inefficient. It would be difficult to say which class the employer loves the least under present conditions." The latter statement is a little surprising, but Mr Wilson explains the paradox by arguing that employers, in spite ol their urgent need of domestic assistance, are not willing to accord the thoroughly qualified employee such conditions of service as she feels she has a right to expect ; more, that the latter is often discouraged and disgusted by the bad management of many colonial housewives. With regard to,-the latter class of immigrant, which we should suppose the more numerous, Mr Wilson says, "The inefficient girl is not wanted here, not always because she cannot learn, but because there is no ono to teach her. So few employers nowadays are trained, in house-keeping methods, and incompetence of the employer and her assistant will surely result in an uncomfortable household." It will be seen that Mr Wilson casts sufficiently s-ivoro rijleeuous on the capacity of New Zealand housewives. Of course, he represents the servants' side of the question, and his criticisms might easily be answered from that of the employers'—for instance, it night well be pleaded that it is scarcely reasonable for the untrained, even if teachable, domestic to demand high wages for being taught her business. But it would be wise for mistresses and all whose interests lie on the employers' side, instead of rising in arms against Mr Wilson's statements, to consider dispassionately how much truth lies in them. Mr Wilson admits that there are good mistresses. It is the had managers and the unreasonable. tyrannical mistresses who find it hard to get servants, and impossible to keep them when obtained. There are no more capable and energetic housewives than are to be found among New Zealand women, just as nowhere are there girls who will get through more work and do it well than the best specimens of New Zealand servants—usually country bred. But too often New Zealand girls of all classes are allowed to grow up without adequate training in household matters, and without the formation of habits of order, carefulness, and conscientious fulfilment of duty. The tendency to this has existed long enough to show fruits in incapable, untrustworthy servants and in incompetent mistresses, and unless much is done to give the rising generation of New Zealand girls better training for the special duties of their sex, present evils can only be intensified. .Mothers too of.tcn suffer their growing daughters to divide their time between school work and amusement, in the vain hope that when they are grown up they will turn over a new leaf and betake themselves wholeheartedly to domestic duties. .Lax parental discipline arising, one must fear, from inadequate sense of parental responsibility, is chiefly .to blame for this. It is common to hear mothers say that they find it much easier to do things themselves than to teach and accustom their children to do them, and to say without apparent shame that they cannot get their young daughters to perform simple household tasks well within their power. Special schools or classes for teaching girls the various branches of household economy may be very useful. But for prospective servant and mistress alike, most of all for prospective wife and mother, nothing can euual practical home training in housework and the habits of order method and punctuality. The home stands for more than school or college, and the mother is more potent to mould her children for good or ill than all other agents together. Then the status oi the domestic worker must be improved. It has often been said ithat women are naturally conservative, anu certainly their common attitude on the servant question testifies towards the truth of this observation. Jn spite of the vast social changes of the last 50 years, too many mistresses even in our democratic community persist in the traditional treatment of servants as beings necessarily inferior, indeed of a quite different order to themselves. Now, girls with character and capacity enough to be worth employment will not consent to be treated from j this point of view. It would indeed ! be hard to show just reason why the domestic worker should be regarded as a social inferior, since the adequate fulfilment of her duties calls for quite as much intelligence as _is demanded by most other feminine callings, whilst good character and good manners should be pre-eminent-ly desirable in a worker who is an inmate of the home. The domestic service problem resolves itself into the need for better training for girls of all classes in domestic duties ; raising the status of domestic service, and improving its conditions. W r hen radical improvement on these lines is made, there will be no difficulty in securing a sufficiency, of competent household assistants. Even now, many capable young women would prefer domestic work, under reasonable conditions, to thq confinement of factory, shop, or officer—Exchange.