HOSTELS WANTED.

White Ribbon, Volume 26, Issue 312, 18 June 1921, Page 1

HOSTELS WANTED.

Auckland Union, aided by its auxiliaries, lias opened a Hostel, and several other Unions are taking steps towards securing premises to open a Hostel. The need for these “Homes away from home” is great. The following letter, which appeared in the “Evening Dost,” Wellington, some time ago, does not overstate the need: You are afraid you are ignorant of what I mean? Then, I'll tell you. Mere they are. these our dear sisters. They work for a “living.” Very right and proper, too. Yes. they would be tie first to say so. If they work very web they get, say, 5s a day, perchance as clerks in the Savings Hank, or an> other Hank, or maybe in an office, if they happen to “live” in New Zealand’s chief city—Wellington—where is the seat of her Legislature, and where are ira the red together the citizens voted into place and power by the Dominion, to look closely and carefully after her interests, if they—our dear sisters —happen to live in Wellington, of course away from home, thus is how some of them live. They, two of them, generally, together hire a room, a single room, probably a liac-k room, in a home where the tenant, finding it difficult to make both ends tie. "lets” to “business young women engaged during the day.” There are others in the house, also "business young women,” so that it is to all intents and purposes an unregistered “lodging-house.” In the room, some 12ft. square, if thry are lucky in finding a “large” room, generally

two bedsteads known as “hospital” beds, that is to say, they've no spring mattresses, but are laced with wires similar to a mouse trap or bird cage. On top of the wires is a thin “bed,” a pillow, and somebody's blankets. If the room own a recess, a pair of curtains are hung up, attached to a shell, in the underpart of which some dress-hooks arc screwed. This Is the double “wardrobe.” There’s no fireplace in the room. There is a dressing chest and a glass in the room. One chair the second "sister” stands, or sits on the bed. Kor this room the two “business” girls pay twelve or fourteen shillings the week. Washing is done in the bathroom, not in the hath. The health inspectors are far too busy to trouble about the water supply in such crowded districts as “let” rooms. Twentyfive minutes to run out two gallons ol cold water, and all the household waiting to wash faces, let alone bodies, in the bath loom. “Why doesn't the tenant ask the landlord to see to the matter?” What! Don’t you know the answer, in Wellington and Auckland? ”1 dare not; he would put up the rent half-a-crown a w’eek.” "Is he poor, then?” “Door!” with a laugh, “he’s one of the richest men in the Waikato.” In this room, twelve feet square, sleep and "breakfast,” “tea,” and “dine” on Sundays, two of our dear sisters. It's ail they have to come to when the day s work is done! See them then removing hats and Jackets, and getting ready for “tea.” Hesitantly one of them makes her way to the kitchen, taps, un«l with

her poor little teapot in her hand, asks politely so politely for boiling water. “Yes, it's just boiled; I’ve turned out the gas!” And so she pours it on the leaves and carries the pot into the "home” where the two cleverly contrive to gel a tea! How they manage to cut the bread, how they find room for the plates, how they endeavour to cheer each other up and make light of all the wretched makeshifts, they never tell! The meal finished they “wash up,” by permission of the owner of the home, in the sink, and then retire from the kitchen to spend the evening—how? liy the aid of an indifferent light they manage to cut out and make some garment, prolvably u smart blouse! Tired with the day’s work their young liaeks are bent they've no comfortable chairs and their young eyes strained in their endeavour to thread their needles and take up stitches, until bed time, and then . . . bed ... in a stuffy room, into which the stars look, hut which the wealthy women, the “other sisters” of New Zealand, overlook. • We have seen the one-room homes of London, we have heard th** vaunted boast that this New Zealand is a “free” country; we have been told that there are no ‘‘poor” here; and we look, and reflect thereon. In London of the hundred thousand one-room homes, there is a population of nearly seven millions; in the greater number of these places whole families are together, or at any rate several memliersofa family in each, but in New Zealand the girls are alone, or with total strangers, and. moreover, they come from a different class to that

from which those of London’s one-room people generally hail. Now you “other sisters” and you brothers of both, who read this, you, if you fail to alter this sad state of things, are guilty. You cannot evade the facts as though the} had ever been shown you. If you doubt them, make enquiries, many enquiries, from those who are not afraid to tell you the truth. It is vain to appeal to legislators; it is futile to wait for a better state of things. What you are asked to do is to see that hostels are constructed, similar to that built at Kelburn, Wellington, hy the English Quakers who, seeing the sad state of things in the city, nobly and generously came forward and subscribed the mone> to erect, in Wellington, the building w hich offers a home-away-from-home to girl students, and is known throughout the length and breadth of the Dominion as The Friend’s Hostel.” Fine porcelain baths, a copious supply of hot water -heated by an outside furnace large, light, airy bedrooms, a spacious dining hall, and equally spacious and wellfurnished sitting-room, a kitchen, in w hich any girl students might graduate for the degree in domestic science, before being “promoted to housework, and full board, all at the inclusive figure of 18/- a week!” And the Friends’ Hostel pays! What will you who read this do? Will some one or two or three “come forward,” as the term is, and give a liberal donation to build one, two, three, four, any number of such places in all cities of New Zealand, for these our dear sisters, the future wives and mothers of the New Zealand people? 4t would be no gamble with money, but a first-class business investment, capable of yielding, in time, substantial dividends and also of providing homes for one of the most worthy sectioft- of Unpeople. It is only a question of putting yourself in her place. There could then be but one answer. Have you enough sympathetic imagination to do this? If you were she?