The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1929 THE WORRIES OF WOMEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 746, 20 August 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1929 THE WORRIES OF WOMEN

A NEGLECTED, rather than a new, aspect of unemployment was placed clearly before the Minister of Public Works yesterday fay an Auckland deputation. This phase of the general problem was the plight of unemployed women and, particularly in regard to girls, the serious social dangers involved in protracted idleness. ?

Without exception, all the speakers were temperate and fair in speech, and anything but extravagant in their pleas for more remedial activity on the part of the Government. The Minister, too, in addition to demonstrating a genuine sympathy, kept close to common sense, cited many difficulties which have contributed to the growth of a chronic trouble, and disarmed harsh critics with a plausible narrative about administrative achievements. But neither the Hon. E. A. Ransom nor the deputation probed to the root of industrial and economic disease or attempted to explain the cause of the unemployment irruption. And the real cause of it all is, of course, the simple fact that, after spending millions of pounds yearly on general, technical and vocational education, this Dominion is unable to find skilled work Tor its well-educated people. Those who cannot earn money with resourceful brains, or do extraordinarily well at the races, have very little opportunity to create wealth with their hands. A broom, a typewriter, a rubber stamp (except in some high State departments) or a pick-and-shovel equipment, does not lead to fortune. In short, New Zealand suffers grievously from a lack of numerous manufacturing industries. More than ordinary commendation is due to Mrs. M. J. Soljak for having submitted to a surprised Minister the viewpoint of women on unemployment. She made out an impressive ease on behalf of unemployed women and girls, and might have added quite accurately that, like the story of Sheba’s Queen, “the half has not been told.” Idle women do not suffer alone from the effects of unemployment. Thousands of hard-working wives, who do not receive wages at all, but have to he content, with “a night at the pictures,” are in constant misery and breaking down in health because of the high cost of living, and the endless worry in trying to keep pace with the rushing, extravagant foolishness of modern times. Indeed, a national return to simpler life would do more to end unemployment than ever will be done by all the racketty schemes of politicians put together. But that cure for unemployment and economic distress is not popular at the moment. The standard of comfort and adornment is set by those whose chief anxiety is not the discovery of the best means for earning money, but the practice of the pleasantest methods for spending it on selfish pleasure. And the whole population struggles toward the same false standard of prosperity and happiness, or at least tries to imitate it. It may be admitted with soothing frankness that the Minister, in his reply, revealed knowledge of feminine psychology, though he had to confess that he did not know much about the unemployment of women. But he was unassailably right in asserting that “very few girls are willing to undertake domestic service.” This is perfectly true, though it is no less the truth that nearly every married man and his wife in the Dominion are convinced that it would be a good thing for the country and for future households if all young girls became domestic servants —except their own daughters. In all - probability, if a census of unemployed girls and young women were taken, even the stoical Statistician would be surprised at the meagre minority whose choice of employment was domestic service. As for the Ministerial argument that “many women are now filling men’s positions and causing a good deal of the trouble,” the answer to that is obvious: What else may young women do if young men cannot get permanent work and good wages to enable them to marry? Since Mr. Ransom has declared that the Government at least has succeeded in getting unemployment “on the run,” it is to he hoped that the Administration will hasten the welcome movement in the right direction. But the Minister need not express surprise or regret that farmers cannot get unemployed men to accept work in the country. That incongruous fact is entirely the Government’s fault. It made wages for relief employment too attractive. Finally, the Minister, on his return to Wellington, should tell his chief and colleagues that the Government i$ not doing enough to promote New Zealand manufactures. MILITANT STRIKERS FERE is no end yet to the violent methods of the timber strikers in New South Wales, and recent developments show an increasing rawness rather than any sign of improvement in the temper of the militant unionists. The situation as presented by cabled reports from Sydney seems curiously contradictory. At one stage we are informed that the strike has virtually died a natural death, and that the unionists are tired of the dominating methods of their leaders. But this seems entirely inconsistent with such news as that published last evening, when it was shown that the strikers, still inspired by a discreditable and misplaced loyalty, yet cleave firmly to their policy of aggressive picketing and occasional outrage. This irreconcilable attitude suggests that the strike is far from breaking down. A fair number of the unionists, at any rate, seem ready to sacrifice their personal liberty for the sake of the cause. Perhaps from the point of view of the employers the strike has passed its most serious phase. There appears to have been sufficient free labour about to carry on the restricted operations of the mills. How far the strike has brought about a restriction of trade may be understood from just one example of a lost market. New Zealand power boards, unable for some months to obtain Australian timber for poles, are now turning to concrete and steel. It is doubtful if the Australian exporters will ever recapture these markets. Seeing them vanish, the millers have no doubt made all efforts to bring their plants back into production, and it is the abundance of free labour ready to take their places that has so aggravated the temper of the strikers. Unemployment is fairly acute in Australia, and wherever there is unemployment there will be enough free labour to break a strike. The ethics of unionist solidarity are apt to be overlooked by a hungry man who for weeks has had no opportunity to collect wages. Hence the striker who goes out only makes room for others who are clamouring to get in. This seems to have happened in Sydney, and the brutal attitude of the strikers toward free labourers has been the sequel. How far the strikers have been supported iu their policy by leaders of the Garden type has not yet been established. But impending legal actions in Sydney will no doubt clarify their position. Once the true authors of this damaging policy have been singled out, the State should not hesitate to inflict salutary punishment on them and thus check a tendency that may, if permitted to develop as it seems to have done in recent months, lead ultimately to something approaching anarchy.