New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1880.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 426, 10 April 1880, Page 14

New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1880.

Place aux Dames ! A fortnight ago we published the following paragraph received by the mail:—

Mr. Arthur Clayden writes to the Times statiog that a meeting has been called at Lord Habberton's house of the association entitled "The Female Servants for New Zealand Association," formed to facilitate the removal to the colonies of a portion of the redundant aDd more or less cultured female population. He mentions that an advertisement for a nursery governess for Timaru brought twelve hundred applications.

A recent issue of this paper contained a statement that a publican advertising for a barmaid had received fifty applications ; a contemporary

recently printed a letter in which a lady stated that thirty young women had applied to her for a vacancy in domestic service ; the Government, while stopping free immigration of male labor, allow single women passages as heretofore. Comparing these several facts, added perhaps to others within his knowledge, the reader finds himself faced by a little problem. He has several premisses, from no possible combination of which can he deduce a syllogistically orthodox conclusion. Abandoning the endeavor, after deliberation, he will probably make a mental compromise, with a conviction that our female labor market is amply supplied as to quantity to meet present wants, but that the quality of the supply differs from that of the demand. In formulating this deduction, he may rememberliOrd Bj&ougha.m's definition of a simple substance as " only matter in the wrong place." To mention the name of the substance here might evoke invidious comparisons in the wrong place. "Why have the great majority of our domestic servants to be.imported at the public cost ?—why has a settler seeking a governess to send to the antipodes for her ?—and why, during a time of depression, is a vacant barmaid's situation sought by scores of eager applicants? To these several queries may perhaps be added—-Why are magistrates so often occupied in settling family quarrels ?—a part of their duty which occurs far more frequently than the number of our population and our social circumstances warrant. These interrogations open a wideband, in some respects, delicate subject, even a cursory discussion of which would fill many times the amount of space at our disposal. But we will endeavor to assist the reader to himself supply the answers to the questions raised by briefly comparing one phase of social life in Great Britain with the relative phase as it obtains in most young communities, particularly in the Australasian Colonies. All acquainted with social conditions in England know it is the custom among the artisan and laboring population* to place the girls of a family at the twelfth or fourteenth year in domestic service. The rule is modified undesirably in the larger towns and cities, where thousands of young females are employed in factories and workrooms. The ser- j vice engaged in may be where the young servant forms one in a number, or where she may be the only domestic engaged. The latter position being entered upon at the outset, implies careful preliminary home training; in the former case the deficiencies of home are gradually supplied by the older employees. In this way the majority of young women spend a number of years —averaging perhaps ten —at the most important period of life, and are by the experience they acquire in domestic offices and the practical insight they attain in all matters of household economy, admirably prepared in the greater proportion of instances for the natural sequel of their probation—to become wives and mothers. This is not, it is needless to state, a universal rule, but so nearly approaches one that those cases not coming within it are exceptions. In the colonies the relations of the rule and the exceptions are exactly reversed. The man who in England would have allowed his daughters to pass from childhood to womanhood in the manner described, here does not do so. He ordinarily earns enough to maintain his whole family under the one roof, a position in which false pride and lack of foresight as to his children's future interests are engendered. By the parents'supinenessininculcatingbetter ideas, daughters are sometimes even brought to regard service as somewhat degrading and beneath them. There may be several girls in the one family, and as they reach womanhood there is

not enough scope in a small household to enable them to learn that sphere of duties regarded as woman's peculiar

province. All goes well, however, while prosperity lasts. But that does not always la3t. A time of depression comes, the father is without work for

several months, and the family are reduced to want. Then it is that the

possibility of allowing the daughters to become wage-earners first suggests itself. But the same cause produces

two effects, and it iB precisely at the period when female labor is most abundant that the demand is least. Thus, impelled by necessity, young women not trained for, and hitherto contemnihg, domestic service apply by dozens for the position of a barmaid, or for any employment not " menial,'* in which training and experience are not imperative. Of course there is not enough occupation of this class to meet the demand, and many, as a last resource, then enter domestic service. But the result is nearly always an exemplification of the rule of the survival of the fittest. Incompetence and ignorance cannot long be hidden, and the young woman whose only fault is lack of training is quickly supplanted by a newly-arrived immigrant. In process of time these failures attain the position Nature intended them to fill—they become wives, and mistresses of their own homes. But the cause of non-success in one sphere effects the same result in the second. The consequence, therefore, when the charm of novelty has worn off and hard prosaic life is to be faced, is domestic infelicity, which, growing by degrees, is often revealed to the public through the medium of the Police Court.

We have alluded briefly to one part of a subject really of vast importance as influencing our national life, and it may be asked that, having pointed out a primary cause of what is admittedly an evil, some indication should be given of the cure. That, however, is another branch of the subject to properly treat which would be a task too great for our limits. The cure will, doubtless, be gradually effected by natural means; indeed, it can be effected in no other way. The unvarying tendency of social economy is to equalise itself universally. The best characteristics of old world domestic life will in time be found, minus their attendant drawbacks, in the younger communities. A period will arrive when, without protection, the most important and desirable of all possible local industries will supply our female labor market in every department with ma'efial to meet all demands. The fact of a colonial family wanting a governess will not always add to the English revenue by thousands of postage stamps; scores of destitute young women will not seek one vacancy in a physically and morally unhealthy occupation; magistrates will spend less of their time in issuing orders of protection and maintenance. An era will come when a large part of our young female population will not possess all the faults and few of the compensatory advantages of two classes of society, the more superficial habits without the education and accomplishments of women of wealth, and lacking the experience and knowledge requisite in wives of men in their own rank of life, and the mothers of future generations. But the process of transition will be slow, and will not be hastened by artificial means.