WOMEN IMMIGRANTS

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 33, 8 August 1921, Page 2

WOMEN IMMIGRANTS

EFFECT ON LABOUR MARKET.

Whether young women immigrants from Great Britain to New Zealand /are going into domestic eervice, as they are expected to do, or whether they are glutting Uie factories' and tending to reduce, wages, was ■' a matter of debate in the Arbitration Court at Ohristchurch (says the Sun). His Honour Mr. Justice Frazer demurred at the suggestionmade by Mr. R. D. Martin, Labour- union representative, that the new arrivals were filling the factories.

His Honour said he was rathei- sarprised at tlie suggestion, and thought that most of the girls were going into domestic ' servioe, \ while • the .married women were joining their' husbands. Mr. Martin said that the children of the immigrants, some of whom appeared under age, although declared to be otherwise, were competing is cheap labour in 'factories. . ■ . '

His Honour thought that English children, arriving to-day were undersized, owing to Tack of proper food during the war. ,

Mr. Martin pointed out that it had been the practice in the Old Country for a man and his wife to go out to work, and that had tended to tho reduction of wages. The average ; girl coming to this country avoided domestic work if she : could, and preferred the factory. His Honour : "I have it on good authority that they lea,ve domestic service to get. married. (Laughter.) Mamagft has evidently a greater attraction than \Ke factories." Referring to the rate of wages for female workers, his Honour went on to say. that the "upper rat*" which could ibe allowed must be determined by What the industry could bear. The Court was subject to economic and financial conditions, and though it wished. to do the best it could for workers this could not be the best that might be done, gay, i tt five'years' time. .The" Court did not wish to see wages cut down to a low level, but the "upper limit," soeal'ed, had a tendency to remain firm. It was rather hard t<j inevrease the upper limit, as things were, The Court realised as everybody did, that the prosperity of the eoirfatry Was bound up with the Bociat and general welfare of the people. There could not be a prosperous community if one section was jiving at the expense of the other. The Court wanted to do the best it could. His Honour' n<Med that in these cases th« use of the terrr.. "livimr wage" was misleading, and had caused trouble m Australia, They ho pe j to avoid that hero, by the use of the term standard weige." - , .