Observations

Northern Advocate, 18 February 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

Observations

by “The Man on the Look Out”

J SUPPOSE there will be general agreement that the average housewife is the worst treated of all the people who live by the sweat of their brow. She has no union officials to watch over her interests, and, if she happens to be in a thoughtless or unsympathetic family circle, she has to put up with all sorts of disadvantages which, if suffered by a trades unionist, would bring down the wrath of the law upon the delinquents. *

J DON’T think there is any room for doubt about what I have said, and I am -sure there will be general agreement with the comments made by Dr. Cumpston, of Australia, when he discussed this matter one day during the present week.

D R Cumpston evidently believes

that if full advantage is taken of electrical appliances for the saving of labour, it would very largely solve the birth-rate problem. The doctor, therefore urges not only that electricity should be made as cheap as possible, but that electrical labour-saving machinery should be sold at a price which would bring it within the reach of ’ the lower-paid workers of the Dominion.

rpHIS is an excellent idea, for there

fs not the slightest doubt that if the average housekeeper were in possession of the various labour-saving devices which are now on the market, her lot would be tremendously improved.

JT is all very well to speak of im-

porting domestic servants from abroad, including, as I have heard it mentioned, young women from China, Fiji, Samoa and India.

ASSISTANCE in the home would undoubtedly be a great boon to the harried housewife, but, if, as seems to be assumed, it is impossible to secure the services of capable young women, the next best thing is to build houses which require the minimum of housework.

\yHAT is the sense of keeping a house which : s scarcely occupied? I heard a mother ask one day as she surveyed her home, which possessed a number of rooms that were hardly ever occupied.

amount of work required to keep a large house in the state of cleanliness which every good housewife deems to be necessary is such as would rouse the average man to a spirit of rebellion. Of what use is it all?

rj\HE irony of big houses and up-to-date appliances, however, is to be found in the fact that, ninety times out of a hundred, the housewife does not enjoy all these advantages until she has reached a stage of life when it does not matter whether she has them or not.

JT is in the days when a family is being raised —when there is a patter of. baby feet—fhat the housewife has to put up with lack of all kinds of conveniences.

rjVHE reason for that is to be discov- ■ ered easily. The building of a nest and the provision of all the requirements of a growing and increasing family makes serious inroads on the exchequer of a man who is earning comparatively little money. My remarks, of course, apply more partic-

ularly to days gone by, when earnings were not to be compared with those enjoyed to-day.

R UT it is in the early days when the provision of household labour-saving appliances is necessary. How is that provision to be made? That is the question which Dr. Cumpston raises, but to which he fails to supply a satisfactory answer.

AS I have said, there is irony in the provision of large house and labour saving, machinery when the nest is deserted and there are few needs for anything more than the modest housewhich constituted the first home.

B UT it must not be thought that improved household equipment could not be effected long before it is usually made. If only a small effort was exerted labour-saving appliances could be installed instead of the decorative or luxurious things which are often regarded as all-important.

T T is strange, one may reflect, how

the head of the house will plume himself when, at long last, he lightens the work of his wife by installing labour-saving machinery or makes improvements in the lay-out of his home. I heard of one man who took a friend to his laundry and explained the working of a newly-installed washing machine. The friend had been away for a number of years, and, remembering how the inevitable copper and tubs had been a torment to the man’s wife, said, “How your wife must appreciate this?” There was an eloquent silence. TTien It was learned that the wife *had died just before the washing machine -was installed!

JT is unnecessary to emphasise the moral of this incident.