"MONEY-GRUBBING GIRLS.”

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18583, 9 December 1920, Page 3

"MONEY-GRUBBING GIRLS.”

Air Arnold Bennett, in his new book, "Our Women, ’ ’devotes a whole entertaining chapter .to tho present-day “ Salary Earning Girls.” In the course of it occurs the sentence, “Of course, the salary-earning girl is that terrible thing, a money-grubber ” —a sentence which, Air Bennett points out, convoys a misleading impression when Bhorn of its context. In fairness ti> Mr Bennett it should be shown that the phrase ''money-grubber” is not used by him in a depfeciaiive sense. In this chapter he sketches (ho rise of tho salary-earning girl and the effect of her new knowledge of the world upon her mentality. She is, “of course, a money-grubber,” in the sense,- that'is, in which wo are all money-grubbing. Air Bennett shows clearly that one of the chief objects of salary-earning women is economic freedom. He' says; “Of course, the salary-earning girl is that terrible thing, a money-grubber. She wants money either for herself or for others, but usually for herself, and sho plunges into the ignoble world in order to get. it. Aloney always costs a price. She pays the'price in tlio loss of qualities of ignorance, and naivete, and dependence which once were highly esteemed; and she pays it in hard work, often in discomfort, and sometimes in impaired health. Aloney is partial or complete economic freedom, which is what she is after. . Later in the chapter Air Bennett finds that. *.* Aloney-grubbing is thus not an unmitigated evil. We may go further, and say that, practised in moderation, it is an unmitigated good and the parent of happiness, justice, and sound sagacity.” The young man of to-day, says Afr Bennett, meets in the snlaryearning girl “ somebody who is nearly his equal in material matters, and Ill's remarks to her are likely to lie tested at every point by experience—experience of men, experience of economics, experience of life.” “ Is, then, love reduced to proso? Not in the slightest degree. Thero is less bargaining than ever there was,- and such bargaining as remains is much less crude and much dess one-sided than the old bargaining. Love has a larger scope thau aforetime, and the temptations to ignore love and to pretend that love exists when it does not are immensely fewer.” By salary-oarning girls Air Bennett explains that he means “ that very , largo middle class of .girls who wholly or partly earn their own living.”