DOMESTIC PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 87, 7 January 1920, Page 8

DOMESTIC PROBLEM

HOUSEHOLD SERVICE ASSOCIATION

A SYDNEY MOVEMENT

The visit of Dr. Truby King to Sydney has focused public attention there on lim wellaro oi Iju'uiiH aim iiioilioia, iinu all the old excuses for small lainil.cs. and neglected children are once mom under dismission. Miss Amy Mack, writing in the Sydney "Daily Telegraph," suys those women in Sydney who are seriously wanting light on the subject listen to what Dr. Trilby King has to tell us; others, less thoughtful, though liibro emphatic, lift loud voices against tho existing conditions of things in general, and the domestic servico problem in particular. "There is the crux," many u woman declares, "you can't have healthy laniilies if young mothers can get no help during the trying months lieforo and after the birth of her child." Everyone admits there is much truth in this statement,. but there is nothing new in it, and the reiteration of it ;s not going to affect it. _ People have been saying the same thing for the last 15 years, and all the timo tho domestic problem has been growing worse and worse. Help hag been harder to get each year, and less efficient when obtained. Many wives have been driven by desperation to exchange their homes for boardinghouses and service flats, but this is merely a palliative, and certainly not a solution. Many of the most thoughtful and efficient women in the State have been giving their attention to the problem for years past, and not a few wise and helpful suggestions have been made. Unfortunately theso suggestions have been neglected by the very people they were intended to help, and overworked mothers have gone painfully along the some old road declaring hopolossly that there is nothing else to b? done. There is something else to be done. There is tho whole question to be tackled and solved. It is ridiculous to pretend that a community which has talcen so fine a part in settling the affairs of the world cannot put its own house in order. Australian women have proved themselves splendid organisers and workers during the war, and if these same women will ,only give half as much time and thought to settling the domestic problem that problem wi" soon have vanished. And why should they not? Is tho in.centive less? Surely the happiness and well-being of our men is just as much to us now they aro home as when they were in France or Palestine. And what avails all the sacrifice of tho past years if the land for which we have fought and suffered is to be a land where homo lias lost its meaning? Such a loss is unthinkable. Every woman knows in her heart that the homo is the centre of national life, and that the happiest and healthiest country is the country which has the happiest, healthiest homes. And because every true Australian woman loves the land of her birth, an. uneasy feeling that something is vitally wrong has crept through the land, and is now stirring wonienMo the belief that something must be done. Tho feeling is not confined to the few advanced thinkers: it is 6harcd by every woman who thinks at all. It has begun to find expression in a widespread movement which, starting simultaneously in several places, has now united, and under tho nnme of tho Household Service Association is sweeping forward. This association is composed of women of all sections of tho community: for there is not one section which is not .affected by household problems. And just because its interest is universal there is more hope of a successful issue than in former movements. What is chiefly needed is the help and advice of all women. Criticism thero is in plenty, and criticism is welcome by the association. But the critic should come in and see what is being done, and help with suggestions, not stay outside and fiud fault. The question is too big and too longstanding to be solved in a week or a month. It is only by continuous .and steady effort that radical chnnges can bo effected, and, above all, only by a united effort on the part of all women concerned. Membership is oppn to all .it ono shilling a year. When there is a membership of 100.000 women we shall know that Australian women are really determined to settle this question, and there will be no doubt of the result.