WHO IS TO BLAME?

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 110, 11 May 1935, Page 8

WHO IS TO BLAME?

Should the weekly wage of a girl or woman be fixed sb as to cover the cost of living, including in that cost vanishing creams 'and facial cos-1 metics? This question came before the New South .Wales Industrial Commission the other day. Witnesses claimed that make-up was a right not only of the Public Service girl (at a wage of, say, £2 3s a week) but of the factory girl at a lower wage—and a right that the wage should pay for. One woman witness stated that vanishing cream was essential, as a, girl who did not "make up" now would find it very difficult to get a job.

Mr. Justice Browne: Do you say that a girl in unskilled'work, say peeling potatoes or working ,in a jam or pickle factory, could not get a job unless her face was^made up? Witness: Ah employer expects a girl to look her best, and if she is not careful about her appearance he does not want her in his employment. Mr. Justice Browne: It seems hard to understand that, instead of a girl with a clean skin and'freshly dressed, it is painful for an employer to see a girl plodding about a jam or pickle factory without her face made up. Witness: Well,' employers expect it. The witness was of opinion that the list of things claimed by the Public Service Association as being necessary to a girl was incomplete, because it did not include eyebrow pencils. Another female witness said that in one year a working sirl 1111 D ,O should have .. '

four brassieres, at Is lid each, 12 handkerchiefs,,six slips at 8s lid each, a pair of goloshes, a pair of best shoes at 255, four; pairs of working shoes at 15s each, a pair of evening shoes, a rain coat, an. umbrella, a handbag, six pairs of silk stockings at 4s lid each, and two evening frocks, and coats. When Mr. Justice Browne expressed surprise that nothing of women's wear was expected to last for more than a season, a witness replied that millinery fashion changes every week. It was also learned that an evening frock a few years ago required 1£ yards, now 8 yards. It seems to be quite clear that the personal adornment demands of girls and women' maintain huge industries employing thousands of workers. These industries, reliant, oh feminine purchasing, are/ important to economics. But is it the'job o£ the factory to supply its workers with the required purchasing power?