UNEMPLOYED WOMEN

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 83, 8 April 1922, Page 6

UNEMPLOYED WOMEN

SOCIALISM NO REMEDY

NOTHING LESS THAN THE BEST

LADY ASTOR'S LONGING.

"TRUST NO PARTY."

(rßou oun own correspondent.)

LONDON, Ist February.

Domestic service was the chief subject for consideration afc a conference of women held in the Morley Hall/ Han-over-square, this week, presided over by Lady Aslor. The conference had been called by the Consultative Committee of Women's Organisations to discuss unemployment among women. Naturally the subject of domestic service could not be avoided while hundreds, of thousands of women are receiving unemployment pay and an almost equal number of mistresses are unable to get any domestic help.

■Lady Astor described the Consultative Committee as it clearing-house or G.H.Q,. for the exchange of ideas and mutual education. It had nc policy or programme of its own. One of the most important things from the women's point of view was that all, parties in the State werq looking for what the women wanted. Until such time as women became divided up into political parties, it seemed essential that women should make up their i minds on certain reforms and press 'them on all parties. Now was the time to do this. After watching the House of | Commons for • two years she could not bring it home too clearly tbat they should trust no party, but press their demands on all parties. She had had many letters asking why they should talk about unemployed women when they could not get domestic servants. She had a good deal of sympathy with that point of view, but a great many women could not do domestic work, and if every one of them took a domestic job it would not solve the situation. "I myself in the House of Commons," she said, "when some of the anti-women men were talking about domestic servants, had often "longed to go to them as a domestic, because it would be a wonderful chance of what the soldiers called 'learning 'em.'" (Laughter.) "No work, no matter of what kind, was unskilled." MISTRESSES AT FAULT. Mrs. Philip Snowden said the conference did not assemble in a. spirit of antagonism to unemployed men. Public ■opinion properly insisted; that ex-Service men and meal with families shonld bo given precedence if there was a shortage of work." What women complained of was that public opinion rather forgot that there was a great number of women maintaining other people whose cases should be considered. It was no use loudly condemning men for taking the place of Women, 'and it was foolish beI cause when there was a maximum deI mand for work and a minimum supply 1 it became a battle for mere existencei in which the weaker went to the wall. She did not believe high wages were the I cause of unemployment, nor that the lengthening of hours would stop it. Touching the question of domestic service, Mrs. Snowden said, it was a. good de/il the fault of the mistresses that girls looked, upon it as degrading. "We are suffering from the old and bad idea that it is a thing to boast about | that you never did any work and that i your ancestors for many generations never did. Tho fundamental objection to domestic work was that the workers had not their nights free and unfettered. In factories women would talk and chatter, and they strongly objected to the attitude of the mistress—especially in tlio single-servant home—as it implied in the helper a certain amount of social inferiority. WHERE SOCIALISM FAILS. , "We must make work more respectable and create a public opinion that it ts disgraceful not to do some kind of honest and useful 'work, and that the disgrace of the" workers is to be found, not 5 in the sort of work they do, but m the way in which they do it. I here was, Mrs. Snowden added, no national solution for the unemployment problem. She once thought Socialism was the solution. She now knew that Socialism was not a complete solution, and that national organisation was only a beamnin<>-. At the end of last year there were 385.000 registered unemployed women and 137,000 half employed. But the real number was very much larger. •CA 1 CANNY SURPRISE. In the course of discussion the subject of restriction of output was mentioned, and several women speakers expressed surprise that such a thing existed. ,Mrs. Snowden said that ca' canny, was undoubtedly extensively practised. It was not necessarily laid down in the rules of the trade unions, but was carried on unconsciously, because the whole of industrialism was in a condition of war-, fare. It was to eliminate that that women should combine. They must foster the idea that nothing less than tho best would do in industry. WHAT GIRLS WERE BEING TAUGHT. Miss Lilian Barker, speaking of her experiences in the training of domestic servants, said domestic service was a highly skilled occupation, and that the fool* of -the family should not 1 be put into it. The girls, when being trained, were given physical culture and singing, which was better than merely telling them they " must not- lump about the house, or that their voices were awful." (Laughter.) But what they were doing in the way of training domestic servants would have to stop unless there was a fresh grant of money. There had been 6418 girls put through ■training, and of those there were 80 per cent, still in service. Eighty-five percent, of those were in regular domestic service, the others being in hotels and other places. EQUALITY FOR WOMEN. Miss Strachey, London Society of Women's Service, declared that the unsound economic position of women was at the root of all their troubles. Women in Government employment, after suffering from the " comb," were shuddering in tho shadow of an " axe." Women motor-drivers were terrified at the opposition of the men, and the same conditions were at work among bookkeepers and accountants. Women would not be fully satisfied until they secured the right of entry into the skilled trades. They must, equally vrith men, be free to go into any occupation they chose, and bo paid according to tho value of their work. WOMEN M.P.'S. Introducing Mrs. Wintringham, M.P., Lady Astor said that the newspapers did not care for what women wanted, but they gave a great deal of attention to 1 things for which women did not care a twopenny dump. "Judging by the papers," she added, "yon would think that wo were mostly frivolous, half-witted, and hardly fit for a vote." They had been most fortunate in getting Mrs. VVintriiigham, whose whole heart was with women, into the House of Commons. "It was really amusing," Lady Astor continued, "some, members said : 'Ah, what ore you to do now?' as much as to say I was a sort of musical star and had lost my place. (Lnughlpr.) They did not. vcnliHe that, I wm just in the House of Commons

as the forerunner of many others. No woman could have been more grateful than I was to the men and. women who sent in another woman to the House of Commons. . (Cheers.) The election of Mrs. Wintringham put the dot en the 'i.' They thought I was chance. I was not so chancy as they thought I was. (Laughter.) They knew very little of my work at Plymouth. (Cheers.) Mrs. Winjtringham showed the people of the country that we were not there as a joke, but in desperate earnest." (Cheers.)

NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL

CO-OPERATIOK.

Mrs. Wintringham said that it had been a tremendous thing to have had Lady Astor in Parliament first to plough down all the weeds that were there and needed to be ploughed down. She spoke of unemployment- in country | districts. She said that the present condition of things indicated a breakdown of their industrial machinery and the failure to bring together supply and demand. They could not found prosperity on the destitution of other nations. • In spite of the remedies for unemployment—insurance and Labour bureaus in past years—they found themselves face to face with tho same difficulties once more. What was needed was international co-operation between countries which produced raw materials and those which manufactured, and a restoration of credit. WOMEN ON GOVERNMENT STAFFS. Miss Evans (Association of Women Clerka and Secretaries), who proposed .the resolution relating to tho responsibility of the Government towards women employed in Government Departments, described the few women who were ' left in the Civil Service with responsibilities as exceedingly efficient. When the head of one Department was., discussing substitution a great cheer went up from tho men when they, were told that they hoped to retain some women. That was a very good' sign. In another Department an ex-service man, who was offered substitution for a woman, said: "No, I am single, and if I am to get a job at the expense of that girl, who keeps herself and helps to keep her sister, I am not doing it." (Cheers.) Since the '■■ resolution was drafted an agreement had been come to with the Joint Substitution Board, who, after they had heard that the resolution was to be^ proposed, had asked whom the women would like to have on the board. (Cheers.)

Mrs. Strachey said that during the sittings of the Lytton Committee, of which she was a member, she felt like a butcher, because every decision they took turned one set or another out of work. Government service was not and ought not to be considered as a refuge for the destitute. • It ought to be one of the most highly-skilled occupations, and not a place into which elderly, incapable people, who could not get in anywhere else, were pushed.