THE CAUSE OF IT ALL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9991, 30 November 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE CAUSE OF IT ALL.

[BV 001.0 U.S.]

The community is concerned ab present over the prevalence of the social evil, and practical men and good women are earnest in bhe desire to find out somo way of staying its progress. That it always has existed, and that ib probably will exist till human nature is regenerated by influences higher than human, is no reason why reformers should let their hands fall by t-hoir sides and give the problem lip hopeless. Bub ib may be asked whether sufficient attention has been given to the sources of this ulcer in the social system, and whether by removing some of the principal causes the malady may nob be at loast reduced bo a minimum. Ib is, of course, needless to say thab as affecting those who swell the number of those unfortunates—and ib is in this aspect only wo desire to consider the subject—illregulated human passion counts its tale of victims. t ßut wo have nob any hesitation in saying that for one that falls from bills causo, and continues the life for similar reasons, there ate ten who owe their fate in life to the unequal pressure which the struggle of life brings to boar on women, undor the existing conditions and usages of our social system. When we consider that thero aro ab leasb ten opportunities of the means of honest livelihood for boys and men, for one that is opon to girls and women, and that tho earnings, oven in those, aro unequal as a rule to tho soxos, we have just ten times as many reasons operating to induce women to lead dishonourable lives as those which are pressing on tho other sex. When wo know the difficulties thab are ordinarily encountered by everybody in making a way in the world by honourable means, and when these are increased in this proportion manifold to women, we have no reason to wonder that so many of them succumb to tho difficulty, and society that maintains bhisinequaliby of pressure is being jusb scourged with the scourges which ib has plaited itself. . It is not from this to be supposed thab girls deliberately weigh the proa and com of lifo in arriving at a decision to adopt) the worse. But the ever-present sense of dependence, and tho darkness that' lies before them like a pall, make them more amenable to tho forces of temptation that at leasb offer thorn relief from the agony of the struggle. • Let us take an illustration thab some years ago caused a sensation in London. There is a religious institution having its headquarters there, one of the largest religious institutions in tho world, extending its ramifications over Christendom, doing incalculable good by its publications, and supported munificently by tho gifts of the pious. Rumours of an unpleasant nature became rifo regarding the lives of its young girl employees, and an exhaustive investigation disclosed tho fact that so miserable was the pitlninco paid to each, that in the case of hundreds of them they were obliged to supplement this means of livelihood by tho wages of' shame.

Naturally the disclosure was a horror to the godly, but ib was only unique in being connected with religious offort, for it is very well known that there aro hundreds and thousands of industrial enterprises, owned, many of them, in part or in whole by reputable men and women that shine with the social and religious virtues, where a similar condition of things oxisfcs.

Such disclosures wore made a few years ago in the metropolis of a sister colony, and it may only be surmised how far such conditions of lifo may be operating nearer home. But certain ib is that when remuneration is cut down, say in factory or similar industrial life, to an amount of wages confessedly insufficient to maintain life in the humblest way in the case of girl workers, it is holding out an almost irresistable incentive to criminal lives.

This is not merely an industrial question as between employers and employed, between capital and labour, but one that goes to the very foundations of our social life, and indifference regarding ib is sure to bring its results homo whether we will it or not.

But it is nob merely in thohumblor strata of our social system, that this evil of unfair burthens placod on womon will have ill effccts. It is truo that it is among the poorer classes that the exigencies of such unfair conditions must bo the most keenly felt, and produce perhaps tho most disastrous results.

But if we ascend tho social scale we may expect to find among those whoso education and training may have produced higher aspirations and more extended requirements in the way of the enjoyments or comforts of lifo, that the unequal pressure of tho struggle must bring home to society a corresponding penalty. It is quite true that in properly constituted minds no amount ol difficulty in the struggle of life ought to .'make anyone succumb bo temptation. There aro many things that ought not to be and yot they aro, and we have still the faot that there is this unequal burthen placed on tho shoulders of tho feebler frames of one-half of the community; and that with tenfold fewer opportunities for battling with life, thoy are paid as a rulo for equal work a much smaller remuneration than that wfiich is given to their more powerful competitors. Now smother it up with reasons and exousofl as wo may, the oxistonce of such a wrong—as injustice always —must bring retribution, and the form which it brings in this case apparently is in a tendency to succumb to evil courses, the results of which must permeabo all society with a curse. Bub apart from this solGsh and somewhab narrow view of it, does it nob seom a dishonourable thing that our usages handed down from long tradition should still operate to perpetrate a palpable injustice as bobwecn the stronger and bho weaker sex ? Ib'isidlo to talk of woman's sphere being this, or being that, and not being in this work and not in that. From whatever causes in evolution, men and women in our time are nearly equally thrown back on their own independent exertions. There aro exceptions, ol course, and happy are the womon bhab enjoy bhem. Bub neither these happy ones nor those who soo them should forget that to thousands and bens of thousands outside those exceptions, lifo is a struggle from which there is no discharge; and whon this is so ib is a monstrous wrong that nob only are there far fewer openings to employment for women than for men, bub the remuneration for the identical samo valuo of work is us a rule far less for the ono than for the other. If over there was an evil bhat called for a crusade, it is this. Temperance has its claims, and so havo othor social reforms. But the unfair aiid inadequate remuneration to girls and women, merely becauso of their sex, is at the bottom nob only of the largest amount of the human misery, bub of the human sin and infamy that exist ill our day. ; Much was said of what would be achieved when woman gob bhe electoral franchise. Ib was said she would be the " great moral force " that would redress all social wrongs, and regenerate humanity. Woman has got bhe franchise, and, ib is to be feared, has proved a failure. . . < ■

She has simply lenb herself to prop up the party divisions, and to continue tho partizan intrigues, that are tho posts of our political

life; arid in doing so she has mainly shown herself to be only a more facile tool in the hands of the'politcial manceuverers. There have been, of course, exceptions to this, and in a way some causes that seem to have more special claims on woman in the direction of reform have received hor attention. Bub so far woman has nob shown those results in our political life which were expected of her, and she is coming to be regarded only as an instrument, weaker and more pliablo, probably, in the hands of the political wire-puller. Here is the one wrong which ib is the paramount duty of woman to redress, and as it lies at the basis of all other social reform, 1 ib can be undertaken on tho very highesb grounds, nob of personal interest, but of public duty. In tho public sorvice of the country— take but one sphere in which enfranchised woman could make this principle bear—ib is a wrong intfapablo of dofence, that women should not, having regard to their physical capacity, have as near as can be an equal distribution of tho positions of service to the State, and that for equal performance of duty, they should not have equal pay. Ib is in hor power to win ib if she wills it, and in the interests of humanity, in the interests of morality, and of the general social well being, a beginning at least of the principle should be made in New Zealand.

It will bo ridiculed at first and then combated, and then yielded, after the fashion of all attempts to' set wrong things right But the cause of human rights and of the social welfare will find brave defenders even outside the.ranks of women, and when success crowns tho effort the emancipated women of New Zealand will have done more permanent service to the colony than if they spent years of hustling as the pliablo and mercenary tools of intriguing politicians, who will despise them and laugh abbhemfor their pains. [supplementary. ] WHERE IS ISRAEL? Wibli Dr. Giles we feel bhe difficulbv of dealing in limited space with the ramifications into which this question spreads. Tho identity of tho Sabbath, the literal accuracy of Scripture, the disputed interpretation of Herodotus, and other questions raised in his latent letter, published in the HERALD a few days ago, would each require many columns and many issues to enable Dr. Giles or ourselves to exhaust tho arguments, oven if wo were to pass away from tho mtin question of the identity of Israel, which would require many volumes for itself. If we thorefore waive the opportunity of pursuing the ramifications of this contention, ib is not from unwillingness to follow up the discussion of a very fascinating subject, bub because in the brack in which "Colonus" bravels, objections are as thick -as blackberries on a bush, and if he gob entangled in the brambles he would never got on. However, we may explain to Dr. Giles, and others who have been canvassing the arguments, that though wo believe in tho soundness of our contention—that Israel in Media were the forefathers of tho Scythians thab emerged from Media, according to Esdras, Ttiodorus, Ptolemy, Pliny, and we think, Herodotus; and thab these same Scythians, as shown by Sharon Tumor, fought their way to the mouths of the Elbe, and bccamo the progenitors of the Anglos, Saxons, Jutes, and Danes that swarmed over into England—the only valuo which we attach to the historical phase of the contention is its showing thab such a migration was nob impossible. Thab is all. Ib is part of the Anglo-Israelite theory that the close identification of Israel in their exile and their wanderings would have been contrary to the specific terms of prophecy. j As Judah was to be distinctly known by name and many characteristics, even by the "show of the countenance," Israel was to be literally lost, speaking "another tongue," " called by nnothor name," abandoning the Mosaic ordinances, and losing every vestigo of identity till tho fulness of the time comes.

If it is only shown, as wobolieve it has ken. shown, that tho brack of Israel from Samaria to England was possible—and it is more than that, for it seems probable—that is all that is wanted, the extraordinary identifications in Scripture do the rest. A more entrancing study than tho Bible in tho light of Anglo-Israol truth it is impossible to conceivo, and ministers of religion pub from them one of the most powerful weapons in tho armoury of tho Christian faith in neglecting it. This action of theirs is come perhaps of the " blindness in part that is happened to Israel until the fulness of tho Gentiles be come in," and ministers of religion are, unwittingly no doubt, performing thoir part in the dispensation undor which Israel, miraculously preserved as Judali is, must lie concealed until cho time appointed for the manifestation. The after fate of Israel has beon aptly described as the " romance of history"— nation lost to sight and coming bo the front again— in our ca*o as the " paradox of history," a nation searching for itself.