THE JOY OF LIFE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3102, 27 August 1913, Page 82

THE JOY OF LIFE.

NEW ZEALAND’S STANDARD OF COMFORT. ADDRESS BY MRS PEMBER REEVES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, July 4. Mrs W. P. Reeves delivered an extremely interesting address yesterday afternoon at the _ Suffrage Club, St. James’s, on a comparison of the women worker of New Zealand with her sister worker in England. The meeting was under the auspices of the Australian and New Zealand Women Voters’ Association, of which Mrs Wingrove Cooke is acting hon. secretary in the absence of Miss Now combe, who is visiting New Zealand.

Mr W. B. Scandrett, ex-Mayor of Invercargill, who presided, expressed his pleasure at being present, as he felt sure they would bo treated to a thoughtful and illuminating address. “ Mrs Reeves,” he said, “ has had both overseas and English experience of her subject, and, in addition, she possesses natural ability, due, no doubt, to beingjhe daughter and granddaughter of distinguished New Zealand colonists. I remember that the Hon. William Reeves visited Invercargill as a Minister of the Crown in 1873, a position his distinguished son so worthily filled 20 years later. We owe very largely the passing of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act to the fact that Mr Reeves piloted the Bill so judiciously through Parliament. Mrs Reeves has, therefore, been in contact with some of New Zealand’s ablest men. Altogether, I think, no lady in this great city could be introduced to you with more favourable credentials.” — (Applause.) Mrs Reeves pointed out that when they 'spoke of a higher wage in New Zealand some one always replied that it was more expensive to live there. In some directions, she admitted, it might be dearer, but in others it was cheaper. A commission recently ascertained that in New Zealand the lowest wage for a man was £2 5s per week. That wage in England was only earned by the aristocracy of labour. Certain things in New Zealand were dearer, but certain things in England were -dearer also, so that one counteracted the other. One could starve more cheaply in England than in New Zealand. If one wanted to live comfortably, then it came to the same thing, for the Jsew Zealander did want to live comfortably, and demanded it. In England people wanted to live uncomfortably, and had no idea under what miserable circumstances they were living. The New Zealander would not stand it. They could account partly for this by the fact that a law passed in New Zea'aud was the mind of the nation expressed in legislation. It was not necessarily a splendid law, but at least the people had passed it themselves. In England tho registration laws -were such that an Act passed could not be said to bo the mind of the nation. Mrs Reeves pointed out that in New Zealand a woman who had to earn her own living preferred industrial to domestic work. No matter how high tho wages, domestic work did not tempt them. It was a curious thing in New Zealand that tiio women wou'd not do domestic service, and this branch of work would have to bo properly organised. A mother with a large family could not be left to struggle on and do all the work. It was too much for one woman to do. Consequently, New Zealand being the country that it was, Mrs Reeves prophesied that jn the future they would see this branch of domestic life properly organised, and the mothers would have tho help they so much needed. In England tho wages of women were very low indeed, and always greatly inferior to the wage of a man, even where both wore doing similar work. Tho official reason for this was because they were partly supported by their men folk. Mrs Reeves described this as a cruel and false argument, for her investigations showed that an enormous proportion of working women were doing it because they wore supporting others. Practically every woman in the Lancashire cotton trade was getting loss than £1 per week, tho woollen trade 15s. waitresses Bs, 10s, and 11s, and charwomen 2s 6d per day, with food. In Now Zealand the minimum wage for a working woman would not ho under £l. and she would have leisure time in which to load a cornfortable life. The woman worker in England worked longer hours and had a harder time. In New Zealand there was a certain amount of joy of life which went along with tho work. In England tho joy of life was short-lived with the poorer workers. In New Zealand there was much more room for tho mental life. It was a more wholesome thing. Tho Now Zealand woman worker was not to me-ah JEw.chine as her English sister. Tho ill and woman got it all round—hours shorter, pay higher. living better. At tho end of the woelc tho New Zealand wotnan worker probably bad no more pocket-money loft than the English worker, bur she lived a far bettor life. —(Applause.)