National Union of Women Workers.

White Ribbon, Volume 2, Issue 20, 1 February 1897, Page 4

National Union of Women Workers.

The Annual Conference of this organisation was held in Manchester last November. Interesting papers were read and discussions held, especially affecting working women. In a paper by Mrs A. Phillip on 44 Competition

Amongst Workers,” the crying evil of women who only want to add to their pocket-money and take bread out of their starving sisters’ mouths was deplored. On the third morning of Conference it was announced that the Committee had had special correspondence with the Executive of the International Council of Women, ot which the Countess of Aberdeen was President. It had been suggested that the National Union of Women-workers should act as the National Council for England in connection with the other Councils of the world. The Committee had considered the matter, but had not yet come to terms with the International Council, or agreed on all the details of organisation that would be necessary in order to fall in with Lady Aberdeen’s scheme. It was intended to call, as early as convenient in the new year, a special meeting of the General Committee in London to decide the question. A paper was read at the Conference by the President, Mrs Creighton, on Courtship and Marriage. The mistake of most girl’s lives, she said, was that they prepared too little for the future. Parents often objected to training their girls, as they considered such training would be “ lost ”if they married. But that was the greatest mistake; anything they had learned before, regular habits of work, any powers of concentration, would help in married life. A paper on the “ Employment of Midwives,” was read by Miss Twinning, (of the Maternity Charity, Plaiston), dealing with—(i), the reason for their existence; (2), the probability of their continuance; and (3), the possibility of a great and lasting benefit to be derived by the poor people, at least, from their assistance.

Miss Twinning showed the necessity for women helping each other at a critical time of physical suffering, when, as often as not, medical aid in the country could not be procured. That a midwife is more easily obtainable than a doctor, a less expensive luxury, and of more use subsequently, are the broad and practical views held by the rural poor, who are chiefly dependent on their services. These opinions, she said, are no less strong in the days of Queen Victoria than they were in the days of Pharoah, or than they will be in the 20th century; and she hoped that the antiquity of the profession might justify the hope of development rather than the fear of abolition. The

“Gamp” order of women would, in course of time, be altogether superceded by a younger generation of equally “ handy-women,” who, having been suitably educated, would practice midwifery under State and local pro tection and control. A small minority of the medical profession still indulged in petty hostility to this practice, but that would soon be a thing of the past. A paper followed on the “ Registration of Midwives, ’ by Rosalind Paget (Midwife London Obs. Soc. Corp, and Hon. Treasurer Midwives’ Institute), in which she insisted that, for the public weal, the lives of the most important part of the nation—its mothers—should be protected from inefficient attention, from inexperienced midwives. While they could not prevent people from calling what help they pleased in cases of emergency, the matter could be put on a much better footing by passing an act of Parliament rendering it unlawful in the futuie for anyone to call herself ! a midwife until she has been examined by competent authorities, and received a certificate of efficiency. This would at least enable the poor to distinguish between the qualified and the unquaiified. One lady, however, in speaking to the point, said that in country parishes cruel hardship would be caused by forbidding neighbour women to help the sick and take the small pay that alone the poor can give for the service. She had known her parish for twenty years, and such aid was all the poor mothers : had, but there had been only one death, and that was of a wealthy lady who I died of fever conveyed to her by the doctor, when he went straight to her from a scarlet fever case.