THE SERVANT GIRL QUESTION

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXI, Issue 12189, 10 June 1907, Page 4

THE SERVANT GIRL QUESTION

I.'i.a.n speaking: marked Mrs lavelock ElHb'u address in London on "Solutions ot tho Servant Problem/ on April 13. Mva Ellis in no armchair critic who deal* hi theories only, Init mniij of her suggestion for tho retorni ol domestic service havu been put into practice at her own house at Carbii Eay, in Cornwall. 'The servant question," remarked Mir Havelock Elli», with characteristic fruuknefii, "i» rottoo through and through. It i« a relationship of tyrant and slave, whether in a modified or intensified, degree, in spite of all the cant phrases we may use to disguise it. The tnore fact ot engaging human beings to do one's dirty work and then despieing them for doing it, Mrs Havelock Ellis added, was degrading to the one who did it and to the one for whom it was done. "When I go to a friend's house who keeps «, butler," she asked, "why am I not allowed to »peak to him a* one human being 1 to another, and why must he glide from the dining-room if I tell a funny story, so that he may laugh, or even smile, outgide tho door- We all know well enough thai if our waitress joined in a laugh at a dinner party as she handed us our vegetables we should feel almost as if someone is the room had committed a. crime, and the girl would be severely reprimanded or dismissed the next day. As for sharing in a meal that our servant lias helped to cook for us, in how mamy houses, even whers democracy is evident, do we hud thia J " The

deadly HioMotouy ol oulinaiy donirstic «er,k-« m, m Mi« Havelock Klhs'n opium*, the woi«( lejtuit' ol the ct< Kj^tioH. Tht sum' hcd-iii«»king. tlu' satii'- gieasy natljmg up. the .sunp •>< ounug ul saucep<«n». the Kiune daily louud oi ->c mi- use less expenditure oi cneigy make a servant ofte« ini-.tpiible n ht-ii a ihango of work, exttn without the actual icbt. would make her cheery and competent. But Mrs Ilavelock Ellis had a remedy to offer, a thice-lold solution of the domestic servant problem. The h'r&t solution was as drastic as i* ;s; s ■■sensible — to have no servants at all. Tins, Mrs Ellis suggested, would also help to solve t\*o important problems — publio health and the simplification of family lite. Indigestion*, melancholia, baclc-bitiug, and mischief-making would be decreased considerably among the very people who spend so much time in their drawing rooms, talking about the incompetence ot their servants, if they did necessary and hard work day after day. The woman who dared to go and clean her own doorstep and polish her own silver and laid her own table instead of playing bridge would be pioneeis of :\ now order of things. The second solution appealed more to the mistresses in the audience. It was to ostracise the trained idler, the overworked «lut, the incompetent "char," and to put service on a right bafti* l»y State regulation. The Statute Book would than be the check on the employer, and the check on the incompetent waste of time and substance would be the servant's certificate of competency, which would be signed by the head of a training school, whose discipline uonld be as severe and the tiaiiiinj? as efficient as that in our naval and military schools. More idyllic was Mm Hivelock Ellia's third solution, which depended for its success on "tho working out of a real human ipllowship." .