THE SERVANT QUESTION.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 524, 3 June 1909, Page 3

THE SERVANT QUESTION.

Wo think we are badly off for sorvants here m ; England (says the "Lady's Pictorial") when we get a succession, of incompetent damsels into out houses, but .overseas 1 the difficulty is to lay hands on even an incompetent' onol In ono part of New Zealand; the householders have banded together into a syndicate, guaranteeing a year's wages, tho, passage paid out in advance, to' domestic' servants of good testimonials, willing to ©migrate. The servants are dispatched in batches of thirty, and the mombers of tho syndicate, in consideration of their subscription to it, take their choice from the batch at the other end. The wages: range from los. to £1 a week 'for all kinds of domestic servants, and whole scheme is carried on under, tho aegis of the British Women's Emigration Association. ,

Apropos of the servant question, it appears that in Finland there is a great servants' association, which looks after their interests rather in the manner of a trades uiiion, and cvon organised a very : successful strike a couplo of years aj»o. 'But tho servants tliero are of a different intellectual level from those here, hotter educated, and more alive to the proportion between the rights <j£ the employer and those of, the employed. I heard the other day of a domestic servant who is a graduate of a Scandinavian university.' She is- also admirablo as a servant,-and it requires some sense of proportion to combine the £wo.