The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, January 23, 1909. “SONG OF THE SHIRT.”
At the meeting of the Sydney Labour Council last week, Mrs Greville, the delegate for the Women’s White Workers’ Association, appealed to the Council to support the new union in its fight for better conditions. She said her cheeks tingled with shame when she thought of the conditions under which some young girls had to work. Thomas Hood’s ‘‘Song of the Shirt’’was just as applicable to Sydney to day as it had been to London. Burns’ historic reference to man’s inhumanity to man paled into insignificance when compared with man’s inhumanity to woman. In Sydney, young girls under sixteen years of age received a farthing a dozen for finishing shirt cuffs, working with a heavy iron all day long. At this munificient rate they could scarcely earn the new minimum wage of 4s a week. Little girls were only paid three-halfpence a dozen for sewing on buttons. Even competent collar band hands could only earn a pound a week from the best establishments in the city.
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Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 449, 23 January 1909, Page 2
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177The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, January 23, 1909. “SONG OF THE SHIRT.” Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 449, 23 January 1909, Page 2
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