THE wHITE sLAVES OF England.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5604, 28 April 1886, Page 3

THE wHITE sLAVES OF England.

T» THE EDITOR OB THE BTIR. , Sfiß, —An extract from the Mansion Souse Committee on the permanent distress of London, which baa just been published, iB as follows : — " Female labour i$ wretchedly paid. In Bhirt-making (for export) and eimilar employment a woman gets about 9d or Is for a day'a work of sixteen houra. There are hundreds of women who work for $d per hour, and find their own needles and cotton. The prices include : ShirU $d i each, flannel drawers for Chelsea peni Bioners Is 3d per dozen, soldiers' legging* 2b a dosen, and lawn tennis apronß, «1«---i borately frilled, sj-d per dozen to the 'sweater,* tho -actual worker getting

much less. In such kinds of women's work, however, the whole profit does not, as ia supposed, go to the 'sweater,' but finds ita way in great measure into the pockets of the middlemen and retail dealers. The publio, too, have often in some degr«« th« benefit of these starvation wages." Can a woman make a respectable and comfortable living on less than 30s a week P and what Protection duty would be required on the above class of goods to protect the civilised female labour of this country against such grinding down t Let industrial men and women reflect well on this paragraph (and I particularly recommend it to the stronger advocates of Freetrade). It is our duty to supply ourselves with all that we can produce at profitable prices, and disregard any supply produced by blaveß ; that is, if we wiiah to put down slavery and raise humanity to a higher standard. Any article produced, or anything done that the producer or worker cannot make a respectable living at is not profitable, either to themselves or t« the community at large. We have a very good example in the New Zealand farmers who produce wheat unprofitably cheap. The consequence is that the farmers ar« suffering, and the whole of the com. munity also suffer. It seemß to me that the old responsible style of slavery ia nearly done away with, but a new unresponaible system of slavery is growing as we see in the above paragraph. Now, Sir, can the colonists set themselves against this P Is it right that these females should receive such wretched remuneration for the purpose of supplying cheap things P Is it profitable for individuals, and a benefit to the country, to produce anything unprofitable, or at starvation pay P Tet our friends the Freetraders maintain that the wise policy for the production of Colonial industries ia to compete with the rest of the world without any consideration of Blavery and circumstances. A protective duty of 70 per cent would not be sufficient to balance the difference of remuneration paid in this Colony againat wages at id per day and long i hours. If working men and women earn good wages, f.nd are able to provide all the full necessaries of life, that expending power will benefit all ; otherwise, the wealth produced would be accumulated by a few people, as is the case in England at the present time. Sobriety, industry, and go«d wage* are the means to raise the Colonist to a standard superior to that of which we read almost every day with regard U the old countries. New Zealand is a new world. Let us make it what it ought to be, and be an example to Europe. A protective tariff is one of the remedies for the evil. It is impossible for us to live by being supplied with our necessaries from foreign countries.— l am, fcc, L. POZZI.