AN APPEAL TO WOMEN.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2287, 22 October 1914, Page 9

AN APPEAL TO WOMEN.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—May I craye the indulgence of your space to appeal.to the women of New Zealand to help Borne of their less fortunate sisters at the present time of trouble and anxiety? In the old Mother Land we already have 1,364,000 widows, and the screaming shells and booming guns across the North Sea are daily adding to this awful number. And what is the state of tho majorityi of widows in the United Kingdom ? Their husbands havo not

been able to make provision for thoir future before leaving them to fight alono on an overcrowded labour market, often handioapped by a young family. The socalled Guardians" of tho Poor are willing to reoeive them into their barraoklike workhouses, where the reprobate and respectable have equal rights, but to qualify for this privilege they must have no home left; .their goods must have been sold. Then their little children are taken from them' and brought Up in a Poor Law School, which ie sometimes described as a "home"—with their-mothers elsewhere 1 Such, treatment is well styled "Poor Law." Tho widow with a child or children can practically never get a situation in domostio service unless she parts with her offspring into a voluntary home or institution. As employers always expect their adult servants to know the exaot and exacting details of service, a widow who has worked, in her mother's house and then in-her own has !no chance; she does not know the difference between a port and sherry wineglass. What do they doP . Some let the Guardians look after the_ older ohildren and keep.tho youngest with them. With the aid of a dole they then manage to keep body arid boul together'by office cleaning or charing, sewing, laundry or factory work, for which they are com.pelled to accept greedily a weekly'wage which a New Zealand employer would hesitate to offer to one of his staff- for one such-day's work. Their acquaintance with the pawnbroker is intimate and frequent. This hideous necesstiy plays into the hands of the capitalist, who thus can batten on tho distress of. his fellow countrymen. What Can be Done? Although the funds in tho Old Country will, doubtless .bo used as far as ; possible to enable such widows and their children to eke out an existenoo here, by/far the most humane and tho only final fo'rm of relief would be to ■ enable suitablo widows with' ono or two children to .get to, Now Zealand, where employment at good wagos and lives'-of peace, prosperity, and prospects await them, and ! where the malo population is about 200,000 in excess of tho female, population at the present time. The experience of taking, domestio assistanco rroin among those who" have been engaged in service in the Old Country has not been an unqualified.success. They have been in many instances, dissatisfied with domestio work before Bailing; many of them have only a complete knowledge of one or'other branch of thoir duties, and they have found that domestio work in the old and new' countries ie very, different. On the other hand, widows of the artisan type are well qualified to perform the whole of tho work of a house, and their children being allowed to remain with them act as an anchor to the mother and the continuance of their education will nrevont her from drifting about from situation to situation. , ' •

Widows until recently were regarded as eligible for reduced fares as domestics for New Zealandj but recent inquiry at the High Commiskmer's office in London shows that, ,on instructions from Wellington, desirable types of domesticated femalos are now not generally regarded us eligible. In one district in New Zealand afono an offer was recently made to take fifty widows, each with a child, and an actual experiment with twenty suoh widowe with children was tried last year by the Government of New South Wales, and has proved an unqualified success. It therefore only remains for both the single and widowed farmers who require domestic work, and for the women who find that the work they at present are called upon to perform is : too jnuch for their strength, and they are becoming prematurely aged by the effort, to see. that , bucq widows are again regarded as eligible by the Immigration Department, and then they can be sent out in the usual way. It is suggested that each. borough and district might collectively nominate as many widows as they could absorb, and these could all then.be drawn from one centre at Home. The widowe could each, be required to pay the cost of their nomination and any other expenses concorned with their transference to New Zealand. .■",'.•

Those with more than two children should not be accepted, good- physique and abstinence from alcohol might - be insisted on, and the ag& limit could be, fixed at 35 or'4o for the mothers with.a miuimum of 3 or 4 years for the children; provided each woman had her husband's death certificate of a certain date, as well as her marriage lines, any trouble with regard to posthumous children would be avoided. Surely New Zealand requires truly domestic help, and is willing to give real help to thoso who suffer most in times of war. If 40 districts were each to nominate CO widows, 2000 struggling women at the present time, and their offspring, would find that the war was to tliem a blessing in disguise. What it would bo to the lonely woman on tho station, the over-burdened mother, and her who, in tho time of her trouble, is unable to get female help it is impossible to estimate. .' I would l also point out that Now Zealand, as well as other parts of the Empire, owes a very heavy debt of gratitude to the Belgians as the first defonders of the Empire. Had the Germans reached France unchecked, it is quite possible that England might have succumbed, and as the Teutons wanted the French colonies, there is no doubt but that they would havo annexed Now Zealand by bombarding both islands at once, if need be. The Belgian widows, deprived of their husbands in,the.indirect defence of Now Zealand, have therefore a very pressing claim on our national sympathy. Their being excellent housowives is no disadvantage to their becoming New Zealanders. Shall it-be. told in years to come how New Zealand came to the relief of the fatherless and widows In their affliction, or how 6he spurned their cry for a place in the brightness of tho New Zealand sun? Commending these observations to your practical consideration. —I am, •THOS; E. SEDGWICK. ' 33 Oriental Street, Poplar, East London, September 2. '