THE DOMESTIC QUESTION

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 141, 17 June 1922, Page 14

THE DOMESTIC QUESTION

WHAT MRS. SNOWDEN SAYS.

Touching the question of domestic service, Mrs. Snowden, at a recent London conference, said it was a good deal 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 your ancestors for many generations never did. The 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 the single-servant home—as it implied in the helper a certain amount of social inferiority. We •must make -work respectable and create a public opinion that it is disgraceful not ito do some kind: of honest and useful ■work, and that the disgrace of the workers is to be found, -not in the sort of work they do, but in the way in which they do it." There was. Mrs. Snowden added, no national solution for the unierrtployment problem. She'once thought Socialism was the solution. She now Iknew that Socialism was not a complete' solution, and. the national organisation was only a beginning. At the end of Jasfc year there were 385,000 registered unemployed women and 137,000 half employed. But the real number was ■very much larger.