IMPORTING ENGLISH GIRLS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 768, 17 March 1910, Page 3

IMPORTING ENGLISH GIRLS.

T A proposal to bring 1000 girls from the United Kingdom to work in Victorian factories was met ivith great disfavour by Melbourne women and girls, over 600 of wiiom attended a meeting called to make a protest. The chairman, who was president of the Trades llall Council, said they all knew the sweaters' den 3 that existed in London, and they did not want them to be started in Australia. In an immigration letter trom Australia published in the United Kingdom it was stated that' |irls should go otit to Australia, "whero ; husbands and homes were awaiting them." (Great, laughter.) . The speaker, who moved the resolution of . protest, said there was no shortage of labour in Victoria. The piospect of those' girls being married and settled in perfect bliss was held out, but looking up the statistics he found that there were many thousands more women than men of a marriageable ago in Victoria. What the marriage prospect of the .1000 emigrant girls would be he left his hearers to guess.

Another speaker boldly asked whether the women in that audience did not want to have husbands, and when an eager answer came in the affirmative; he said that conditions should bo established such as would permit men to earn- enough to become husbands. , •

• The, motion of protest was unanimously, agreed 'to, and it was decided to send copies to tlie .Prime Minister, the Premier, the Chamber of' Manufactures, and the labour party of Great Britain.

Howell: "A. good deal depends on tlie formation of early ' habits." Powell: "I know it; wEen I was-a baby my mother hired a woman to wheel mo about, and I have been pushed for money evor since." . . COSTUMIER. Mrs. A. E. Duff, after an absence of two years in England, where she haa studied tho latest European modes, will be pleased to meet old and new clients at her rooms, Hannah's Buildings, Lambton Quay.—Advt.