THE DOMESTIC SERVICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3005, 18 October 1911, Page 89

THE DOMESTIC SERVICE.

(Contributed.) We are passing through an epoch of sporadic philanthropy, but there is one very serious weakness irr our social system that is very rarely alLuded to—i reler to the impossibility of getting domestic service. The few wealthy people in our midst who can afford to keep tour or five servants, and pay high wages, do not feel this short-age ol labour, but the people with moderate incomes, who can only afford to keep one girl, or, at the meet, two, suffer very severely indeed, and indirectly the Dominion is struck in its "weakest part. We all agree that population is the want of this young country, and there can be no question but that our best stock is that raised by our own people, but what consideration do we extend to the young mother ?

Take the case of a comparatively porosperous young tradesman who marries a girl and desires to give her something like the comforts of the home she has left. He can afford to pay 12s 6d a week for a girl to assist his wife. This, with the girl's keep, means an outlay of about 22s 6d a week. He may start out all right, but when the little ones come, and the mother stands most in need of assistance, she must get through her double work unaided. " Any children?" "Yes, one." " I won't go where there is a young child!" The man returns at might to find bis wife worn out by household duties and the cares of a young child. If she is a little cross and irritable, can you blame her? If he is an ordinary manj and therefore selfish, her note strikes a similar discordant key in him, is it to be wondered at? Nevertheless this means a gradual heavy withdrawal from the fund of (mutual affection they banked orf marriage, and explains the reason of the fall in our census returns and our small families. It also furnishes a text for a sermo'n I cannot give in your columns.

The shortage of service is due to many causes. One main, factor is snobbishness, a feeling that domestic service is one' of the lower rungs, if not the lowest, of the social ladder, and that it restricts the freedom of a girl —whereas in a factory, or a shop, she can have her evenin.gß to he.rself, and, indeed, earn better money. The fact that in service a girl gets her "food and lodging is generally overlooked. There are mistresses and mistresses I - Many, I admit, are harsh, and unsympathetic, but they aire in the minority. are ready and willing to take almost a parent's interest in a girl, but they get little encouragement and have too often to put up not only with incompetency, but_ a thinly veiled antagonism and much ingratitude. The consideration cannot always be on the one side. The girl should realise that she is bbing trained in honourable and useful work, so that one day she can manage a home of her own, that it isi her duty to give honest service, and that it is her mistress's duty to recognise the fact.- and treat her with consideration and appreciation. A girl doing housework for pay should occupy a better social position' than the girl who is a typist, or a clerk, because she is doing more responsible and useful work, and will in all probability make the •better wife. Against all this, however, stands the inexorable law of snobbishness, and the service is not only not forthcoming, but is getting scarcer every day. What is the remedy? America has partially solved the problem by the employment of Asiatic helps, but we are a small country, and must keep our race as pure as we can, and it is rightly impossible for Us to copy that example. : I question whether Great Britain can supply us, as there is no great disparity between the wages there and the wages here. France and Belgium might, and either country would give us excellent stock. The Brittany folk, for example, aire very like Highlanders in many ways, and their language is very similar. We have to do something, and the question is what is best to be done, for it is certain that we cannot hope to supply the want from our own people. Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the present position, which is a growth of the-last 25 years. Formerly girls went into service who regarded their employer's interest as their own,, and some of the 'best women in our town and country districts have been domestic servants in their youth, and to-day th** friendship existing between them and those with whom they worked-is as warm as it was 25 years To speak of domestic service ae being a degradation is to insult some of the finest mothers in the Dominion - . There is still another evil arising out of this shortage, and that is the unscrupulous way in which woman entice awav girls from the service ■of their friends. This is done indirectly by emissaries, and tends to destroy any existing confidence irr a helper. It is one of the meanest things any woman can do, and is almost on a par with crimping.