A WOMAN'S VIEW

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 50, 28 February 1921, Page 8

A WOMAN'S VIEW

TO TBl EDITOR. Sir,—Allow mo space to reply to the letter of Edith Carmichael in last Wednesday's paper in reference to the socalled lock-out. The writer says "the men are willing to work." Well, I am a frequent visitor to the wharf, and from remarks made by,the men I could never come, to the conclusion that the men are willing to work. Some of them are; lie meek type of men —those that are gentle, tome-loving men (probably the writer's husband is one of tills type), but there are the others —those that are never satisfied; those that can never rise to a higher pinnacle of success, but who are everlastingly striving to do so; those who are possessed of restless soula endeavouring to make money and recklessly spending it as fast as it is earned. Consequently they cannot save, and their conclusion is that they are underpaid. Aptitatkm upon this subject is one cause of all the trouble.

I personally am for the. wives and children, but until there is unity and fellowship among the waterside workers they will remain in the groove of discontentment. As for the remark by the writer that she '' doesn't think much of anyone who tries to separate husband and wife," is the writer for the Welfare League trying to do that? Is the Welfare League trying to do that ? Certainly not. Whatever put that into the writer's head I am at a loss to discover.

The writer also says: "Why cannot the waterside worker spend some of his evenings in his home, or out with his wife and children the. same as other people?" He can if he wants to. There is no reasonable excuse why he shouldn't do so. There is nothing which forces the watersider to work every night. No sane employer on God's earth, forces his employees to work overtime every night, and no insane man on the same earth is worthy, to be an employer. . On the other hand, no sane employee should allow his employer to bully him, as the writer says the employer does. Surely this last assertion is, to say the least, doubtful.'

In conclusion, I would say that so long as the watersiders hide behind a cloak of solf-righteousness they will not got anywhere, bnt directly they are ready to admit their own faults the dawning of a,brighter, happier day will be witnessed by the hundreds of women and children who are the real' .sufferers, and who bear the cross of hopeless faith.—l am, etc. A. R. DOREIAN. 26th February.