SWEATED INDUSTRIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 194, 15 August 1907, Page 6

SWEATED INDUSTRIES.

LECTURE BY MISS MURCUTT.

Miss A. L. A. Murcutt gave her third ecture in Auckland last evening, -when it the Baptist Tabernacle she spoke in the subject of "The Sweated Industries tf Britain." There was a very large atendanee, and the audience listened with, he closest attention to Mis 3 Murcutt's leseription of the horrors attendant upon he sweating system. In order to obain a real knowledge of and insight into he practices, Miss Murcutt spent six veeks in the East End of London, and ras thus enabled to speak with that force tnd conviction which comes from personal knowledge of the subject matter. Miss Uurcutt thus became acquainted -with he home life and surroundings of the joorer classes. She pointed out that rweating was by no means confined to England, and in Germany, where similar traditions existed, a sweated industries s&ibition was held, with the result that egislation was introduced giving oppor;unities to all to earn a living wage, describing what had come under her own Dbservation in London, Miss Mureutt rraphically demctsd the scenes of misery md squalor ?% many of the. so-called lomes in the East End, and showed how jrorkers were compelled to struggle on, :oiling night and day to keep body and soul togethei , . In one industry* with which she had come in touch, women and girls worked 9S hours a week for a miserable wage totalling 4/10*. on which they were compelled to live. Thus it was evident that in England flesh and blood were regarded as the cheapest material on earth. The result was that a race was being bred which in the future would be a menace to Britain. In London, she had seen twelve persons huddled together in a room not larger than fourteen, feet by fifteen feet a disgrace to a Christian community. The cause of much of the misery was that Britain was practically owned by a few people, who were driving the real workers off the laiid and were extending the deer parks of the nobility. The workers -were thus pushed into every hole and comer, and were forced to herd together like cattle. Land reform was the vital question requiring adjustment, and legislation was necessary to make it possible for men to earn a living for themselves and their families. Miss Murcutt pointed out that mary of the slums were church property, and" instead of attending to the heathen at home energies were directed to heathen races abroad. The lecturer went on to describe the degradation of women in many parts of the East End, and showed that a great deal of this -was due to the drinkevil. making an appeal to her audience to assist in th= removal of the evil from the earth. Miss Murcntt moved her hearers very much in her descriptions of the misery and squalor -which she had encountered, and at the close a hearty vott of thanks moved by Mr H. M. Smeeton, who sided, was accorded her by acclamation