Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Third of a Century.] SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1910. WOMAN'S SCOPE IN CANADA.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXII, Issue 9735, 23 July 1910, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Third of a Century.] SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1910. WOMAN'S SCOPE IN CANADA.

It is like a breath of ozone to him who spends hours daily in a badlyventilated room, to read of tho prospects which aro open to womeu iv Oauada comparod with those available to their sisters in the congested cities of Britain. A wealthy womau of leisure, who felt iv her own life and saw in the lives of thousands of others only waste, wrote:—"Teu thousand Englishwomen could be ranged in a live and shot. No ouo would be sorry. There isn't any place for them." She doubtless thought of the thousands of wasted lives in Britain. Bodily health, , education, mental ability, totalled up —zero. Nothing done in a world where there is more to do than ever can be done ! The crux of the problem is: Too many womon; too little work. But iv the great Dominion of Canada there are opemugs for female energy and industry that are a drug in the market at Home. Canada wants between eight and ten thousand domestic women every yoar, for in Canada no domestic who is any good remains a domestic. They prosper, rise in life, set up establishments of their own, and ultimately require domestic help for themselves. In Britain hard is the lot of the educated woman who is trying to earn her living by her brains. The governess normally receives a smaller salary than the coachman or the cook. Tho teacher in a ladies' school wears out her strength at a salary which will never enable her to retire. The educated and refined daughter of the country clergyman secures some genteel employment, and receives less salary than the road labourer. Thousands of well-born, highly-educated and cultured Englishwomen are thankful to obtain positions as type-writers at a salary often less than a pound a week, out of which they have to dress, pay their board, not to speak of laundry, 'bus, holidays and illness. How it is done, is the problem. Others do' faucy work in an attic, and earn a mere pittance. In England there are thousands, yes, hundreds of thousands, of highly-educated, refined English girls, thankful to earn from £20 to £35 or £40 a year. Amusements they can have none. Oan such be called life, or merely existing? Iv England women's lives are going to waste for lack of work, while in Canada are the waiting homes, the waiting farm?, the waiting schools, and other place:,

actually iv distress for lack of those very womeu. But here is the secret of Success amoug woineu in Canada! All are working women; English prejudices have to be plucked up by the roots, aud the Englishwoman intent on obtaining better conditions in Uanada thau ever were within her grasp in the Homeland must forget the past, and decide to transplant herself completely to her uew environment. The "home-help"—the euphonious name applied to the domesticated lady-servaut iv Canada —is regarded as one of tho family, aud is usually taught to drive, ride, skate, toboggau, aud iv fact feels more as a visitor thau anythiug else, while earning wages that in England would have boeu undreamt of. Particularly is there an opeuiug iv that vast Dominion for women gardeuers. Giveu health aud industry there is fortune waiting for them iv that marvellous prairie loam, just as surely as it waits upon the men who go out to grow wheat aud raise cattle. There is a still larger class of occupatious opeu to womeu in Oauada—fruit farming, chickeu raising, ranchiug, even wheatgrowing. With the great bulk of the youug working womeu iv the larger centres in Oauada may be noticed an air of enthusiasm. Work to them is the means of life, aud there is an houest respect' for wages. To thesa, work nieaut something over and above tiie wages paid, "aud that something over and above," writes Georgina BiunieUlark, "is gradually embodying a fine quuiitj' which, one day, must be acknowledged as au asset that womau brought vvitli her into the marketplace of work."