"IMPORTATION OF DOMESTIC SERVANTS."

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 872, 19 July 1910, Page 3

"IMPORTATION OF DOMESTIC SERVANTS."

.[To the Editor.] . Sir,—l havu listened to and read with interest, the vapourings of the individuals' who want to ioist on this Dominion a superfluity of girls, with; the professed intention of supplying the working man with help. in his homo. Now, sir, how name of common sense is the man with.-;an incomo.of, soy, <£2 10s. weekly ,to keep a servant? Rot!,He can't do,it. I know, men who get considerably more than that . who cannot. . I. myself get £3 10s.;. pay 255. weekly, for rent, my family numbers six, with .myselfiuiu wife, eight. That is eight mouths to feed, eight bodies .to clothe, eight healths to consider, and,, in addition, insurance fire and life, yearly, • and the; hundred and r .one small expenses of th& : ayerttgfc family. Pleasures i We go to a picture show, occasionally, a few outings in the country in the shape -of a day's picnic now and again in the summer. 1 That"a all. I don't drink, smoke, or, gamble, or go to church, yet I only just make both ends meet. - Post OiEco Savings Bank ? Never had the luckj .to' put anything there .yet! If I'm sick a day I lose a day's work. Ifow, how in the .name of creation am I going to keep a servant? Now, ;these people whe talk and write about '"Help in • the homo," .as a rule would bo the last to put their hands to a thing while there was anyone to ; do it for them. - My wife has had to manage by herself to bring the family up, and she has never complained. This claptrap about, the empty cradle she , has ,no time for; she says that she would not lose one of the luds for fray ; money, and is of tho opinion that, those persons,' especially women,: ' wild'' .are imitating' for. servants are the persons' who' cannot get them,--because, they ,don't,.: know how to treat them when'\thQ'', t liave knows--she has been a "slavey" in her time. .. Another thing, how the deuce is the Government gijing to make these imported girls. stay where, they put them when, they get them here? , I am sure no self-respecting girl would like to 'bo placed under the same rules as the girls who are recruited from .the S.A. Homes, llount Magdala, andj other ' reformatory placcs. No girl of mine would be permitted to serve people who descend to the petty level of slave-drivers, unynay. I 'believe in the Government trying to help everybody, but this sort of thing is not helpinj everybody. The end of it would be that the s girls . would gradually drift to the factories, as our colonial girls do, and why shouldn't they, if! they get better pay,, hours, and treatment? Meanwhile I " await developments and "lay low," like Brer Babbit.—l am,' etc., ENGLISHMAN. .