WORK FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN.

Patea Mail, Volume X, Issue 1316, 4 March 1885, Page 3

WORK FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN.

Under the above heading a writer over the signature of. “ Pater Families ” thus comments in the Industrial Gazette:— ,f In this matter I think every Government which has hitherto existed in this Colony—including the present one—has been nnjust to girls and women by failing to employ them in some of the pnblic departments, gnch as the Telegraph and Post Offices. For years past in Great Britain hnndreds of girls have been employed as telegraphists and Post Office clerks, and the experiment has succeeded admirably. Why should not a similar practice be adopted in this Colony? Some years back there were n few female telegraphists employed in the department here, bat the practice has been discontinued, and now this channel of employment is closed against girls. .This, is a ,'grievious, wrong, and crying injustice to the hundreds.. of _ bright, clever, and well conducted girls in Wellington and other parts of the colony, who would eagerly avail themselves of the opportunity of obtaining employment of this kind, and who conld do the wcrk of telegraphists or Post Office clerks quite as well as young men. It might be asked, if girls are to a certain extent employ ed as clerks and telegraphists what is to become of the yonng men whom they may displace ? The answer is obvious. Young men with health, strength and a desire to work, should be to find useful occupations altogether independent of driving a pen and doing routine work inside the biggest wooden building in the world. The curse of New, Zealand is that it is overridden with official clerkdom. Young men with strong hands and willing hearts shonld scorn to become mere Government clerks. Let them learn a trade or how to work with their hands at some useful calling. Let them go to the country and try to earn their bread and make their way in new settlements. A hundred occupations are open to yonng men, as compared with one which a girl can take up in this Colony. Men should do that real downbright work which it is their natural - function to perform, and «1I the lighter employments for which girls are suited shonld be thrown open to them.