WOMEN AT WHITEHALL UNHAPPY CONDITIONS.

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 70, 16 December 1919, Page 7

WOMEN AT WHITEHALL UNHAPPY CONDITIONS.

The feeling against the continued em; ployment of women in Government oiliccs Im» not been appeased by the sacrifice of some hundreds of so-called "llappeif,"' .states the "Daily News." There' is said to '»e growing jealousy , and bad feeling. :n the" big offices iu" Whitehall, where women have been ablo to . retain their pests, and this feeling, it is further stated, is most apparent among tho demobilised officers, who havo been found positions. . . One woman clerk in a Government ciike told a "Daily News." representative of an argument she had had with •1 newly-ajpointed ex-officer, who had declared thiii: a major he. knew was forced to work as a brcklayer,. "because some woman like myself was keeping him out of a Government po=i. I told him that bricklaying was possibly the gentleman s pre-war job, while c'.er.cal work had a.ways been mine." . A graduate of one of our ora Universities who is engaged 011 responsible work in a Government office at half tho salary earned by her male colleagues in (lie same position, statetl that tbo boycott of women clerks was very general, and a subject of bitter d'scussion whenever they met. - "We female limpets, she. said, aro weary of the reproaches whicli are being horled nt women who till cling to Inoir jobs in the Civil -Service. Demoblised men who come into our- oflicc and got Iho pick of the io'bs vogml \:s ;vith mlike and resenfTnent, and openly as!; 11s when wo pronoso to resign uur appointments niul give n'nee to men. Tho unuiarr ctl women, whatever their ago and fiiialilic.itions, are all branded as •flappers' and accuseds of a. p-.is.«!on lor. silk slockiii'is and theatres. 'Che mnrned ones are mid that they should lytro to their homo and look to their husbands for support. . "We cannot help gathering from them lli.il- being men, they feel they havo a right to comfort, wh 1" women must turn hi'tiie mora strenucu.-; and less opulent lire of I rusher, hwpitnl nurse, governess etc. .itav many men of independent means, bv tho way, have surrendered their wsilions and retired in favour ol vnung mon? . ' " ii'lcr all. the situation H not ct our ma-k ug. Is it fair that men, win) make «',-irs and decree that women must not fi-ht, should now reprrtich those women because they have furvived? The wor.d is cprtainlv* overstocked tvitJi woinoii, but is that our faultr" Sue!) eompleints as the above are to lie heard to-(Uiy in every ofnee where wOiiipii nro omploye<l. It iR ii'Cf{\uHH.y being pointed out thai most ef the young women now in Government offices ere tho daughters r.f professional men who can no longer afford to keep toe r offspring at home in idle.'io.";. The elderly women lire, for the most part, people who in pre-war days onjoyed a riinnl) private income. which then sufficed for their needs, but which to-day spells starvation.