DOMESTIC LABOUR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLV, Issue 10431, 8 November 1919, Page 2

DOMESTIC LABOUR.

.Of the 83,000 domestic servants regis : to red at tho labour exchanges as out of employment (it is compulsory for unemployed workers to register at tha exchanges before being eligible, for the Government's unemployment t)uy>, tue buiH. of them want domestic service on conditions. They want fixed hours of work, a fixed rate of pay per hour, and they refuse to "live in" bocauee tha\ want to be absolutely free when work {» over oach day, "The nation must be made to understand that lii'o is not the same a» it used to be, and that it never will be the same," writes a correspondent of th« "Daily Mail." in discussing the servant problem. "If we would live healthily and pleasantly our only hope is to wake up to the necessity of providing laboursaving hoinea, nursery schools, municipal cleaners, who will clean windows and doorsteps, stoke furnaces, carry coals, and clean areas, just as now thoy clean tho streets, empty our dust bins, and disinfect rooms after infectious illness. Wn miv.t demand still further development of *ho cooked food industry. A vast amount of labour could be saved could wo buy much of our food, either cooked or prepared for cooking. AVo must look forward to tho extended use of electricity and gae. Do away with coal «nd much of tho hard work of the house ia saved As things nro we spend bourn uienning grates and flues, and filling coal scultlca, Tho Communal Housa must come—not the kind of house which forbids privacy, for a home in which one could not be alone would bo intok-rable; but that in which we can enje-v a control kitchen, the services of a band of clennors, of u 'group' nurecry, and 'group' nursery governess. We who as a nation dislike change, who resent having to itfo the brains which wp hiivc l'> realise thnt n domestic life, the cond"tionn of which were built i'n on an n ). mo?t unlimited «ui>r>lv of Hieap Inborn, ''s no longer possible. The transition «t:»<?B will bo vast.lv unploHßnnt and difficult. Let u« then terminate it n« "uieklv nn possible, which crn be dons nnlv if men and woninn will upr their intelligence, and realise that domestic revolution is upon us, that it is inov't. nble. but thnt it tnnv prove one of the greatest blessinffs of the century."