UNEMPLOYED GIRLS.

Evening Star, Issue 21662, 6 March 1934, Page 3

UNEMPLOYED GIRLS.

TO THE EDITOR Sir, —Regarding this discussion on domestic servants, 1 quite agree with the juris in not going to private houses. I have been at domestic work myself, and if the wages arc not 10s a week they are £1 to 255, but you have exactly fourteen to .sixteen hours a. day to work .and taking that all round you get >‘ls (Id a day for sixteen hours. Can anyone tell me how girls stand up to that? - J, lor one, could not, like many more, and these members of so-called society treat the •soil under their feet hotter than they treat their maids. So now the agencies know why the girls won’t take on domestic work. As for the country jobs, J think myself the girls are quite right in turning them down, because you are working from morning till night without a break for the large sum of los a week. 1 have been through the mill, and all I can say is girls, stand on your dignity, and don’t let the so-called society squash the working girls by offering them 15s to a £1 a week and keep.—L am, etc., Through tee mill. March 5.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The explanation given by Mrs Ross regarding unemployed girls is very ambiguous. First of all, it is only a small proportion of the hundreds of unemployed girls that the committee can attend to. Again, Airs Ross says; “ While so training they receive 7s (id for, two days and a-half and their meals.” Does this not really mean one •meal a day, and that meal not specified? Later on Mrs Ross says: “We have a minimum for which wc allow them to work, and it is 10s. not 7s 6d.” Which statement is correct? Still fur-, thcr on Airs Ross says; “ We have never been hard and fast about the stand-down period, and seldom enforce it—never where it wotild cause hardship.” Who is the judge of hardship; Could any girl save out of the munificent wage enough to carry on for another month? 1 take it that a girl is very lucky if she can rent a room for less than 10s a week. We all knem how hardship is solved; it is just ignored and denied. Tho Cost of Living Commission found £2 10s tho irreducible minimum for a family of five, yet wo receive 07s Gd, and Air Bromley admitted to me that it was not sufficient for my requirements, yet the Commissioner of Unemployment would not listen to me if I plead hardship in regard to levy as stated in levy book This last week out of 37s Cd rent had to be paid £l, levy ss, and lodge dues 5s 3d, leaving 7s 3d for five persons. Pope, the poet, said: “An hones! man’s the noblest work of God much more, I say, an honest woman. Are these not just the same women that cunning spielers painted in glowing colours some years ago and asked the “ diggers ” to protect? Let the finan ciers do their part now. Last woolthey had £2,500,000 for tho Reserve Bank.—l am. etc.. O. X. Mac Arthur. Alarch 0.