THE LESSER EVIL

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 75, 30 March 1932, Page 9

THE LESSER EVIL

WOME^ TEACHEES

SHOULD MARRIED ONES GO ?

N.S.W. CONTROVERSY

While profoundly sympathising with the married woman teacher and while fully appreciating that education will suffer through loss of her skill, the "Sydney Morning Herald" yet feels that in New South Wales she will have to stand down. . There are good reasons for keeping her, but good reasons will have to give place to better, and abnormal times demand a course justified by their abnormality. The Lang Government, persisting in its intention to retrench all married women teachers whoso husbands are in employment and receiving more than £.6 a weckj is having drafted, it is understood, a Bill to provide for such action. "The step (writes the "Sydney Morning Herald") is likely to affect about five hundred women—many of them, it has frankly to bo admitted, among the most capable and experienced teachers in the service. This proposal is no new one, nor can it be said that the Government had rushed at it hastily. Scarcely had the present Ministry taken office before tho subject was mooted, and it quickly assumed such definite shape that on 22nd December, 1930, the question was keenly discussed at the annual conference of. the New South Wales Public School Teachers' Federation. Sharp differences of opinion were expressed, and a good deal of irrelevant comment was made. BY A SMALL MAJORITY. _'' Only by a small majority was it decided to interview the Minister for Education (Mr. Davies) and register a formal, protest. Meeting a delegation on the following day, the Minister I declined to yield. He resisted the temptation to examine the. question whether marriage was or was not "a crime," as one member of the deputa-j tion put it, and stuck, firmly to what i was, and _ still is, his one real justification in times so abnormal as tho present—the necessity of making room for those who have no other means of support. The position of these, he! considered—and public opinion in' the main is undoubtedly with him—to be J harder than that of any woman who' can fall back on a, husband in employment. Mr. Davies, indeed, assured his hearers that ,he meant to take action at the- earliest possible moment. Not-1 withstanding which, fourteen months later, the position is still the same. "And still tho same irrelevancics are being littered, and the , same refusal shown to consider tho ' difficulties of this extraordinary period—a period in which many Governments far more cautious than this one . have been driven to adopt devices which in happier times they would never have entertained. No one really desires to dismiss the married women. It is simply a case of painful necessity, a case in which, as one of the characters in Galsworthy's- 'Skin Gauie' says, 'good reasons must give place to better.' Many of those who denounce the proposed change do not seem to realise that any other reasons, let alorie better, exist, at all. IT7E HUNDRED WOMEN, 565 , STUDENTS. "Ono indignant correspondent protested against the dismissal of 'these highly trained.women, trained at the expenso of the Stato for very specialised service,' and did not- appear to be aware that every word of that defini-. tion would apply with no single change to the student-teachers now kept out of employment. Is theirs not a problem that requires to be faced? There are 565 of them (140 of whom are- University graduates), and they have been, as another correspondent has jointed out,'fully trained for from two to four years at the expense of the State, legally bound to the department for, in some cases, five years after their period of studentship, young, enthusiastic, and, for. tho last seven, or : nine years, since leaving the primary school, ever more dependent on parents and others for support.' Compare this group with the other group, so, nearly equal in numbers, and say which of the two has the greater claim. A hard choice, admittedly. . "The passing of this measure, then, and the breaking down of any obstacles which may lie in its path, will be in the main justified. This is regrettable. But these last two «■ years have seen many regrettable things forced upon us, and numbers of them have been less well warranted than this. The change should be> mad© as mildly as possible, each case considered on its merits—which, indeed, is the procedure assumed by the stipulation of a certain fixed standard for a husband's earnings. COUNTRY SCHOOLS WITH MARRIED COUPLES. "It may prove, for example, unwise to meddle with a number of the small country schools which are run by husband and wife.. There should also be due consideration given to those who, imview of present income, have undertaken commitments definite and provable-. For future guidance it, would probably be advisable to enact a law providing for the retirement of female teachers in the event of marriage. This is done in the other States, and the Minister hinted at it in tho course of the interview referred to above. It is not to bo expected that steps of this kind, either now or at any time, can be taken without arousing tho strong resentment of those affected. But even so, legislators find themselves forced to cdnsider not ono resentment, but two, for the group excluded is just as aggrieved as that which is now in possession. Between these, a decision lias to be made, a decision the like of which was never as much as conceived of in days more prosperous. Nor is any half-way course discernible. Someone'has in some measure to suffer, and it is a self-evident fact that those who have other resources on which to rely will not suffer so much as those who at present are cut off from all chance whatever of earning a livelihood.