Otago Witness Illustrations.

Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 43

Otago Witness Illustrations.

DOMESTIC SERVANTS' UNION.

3,000,000 WOMEN TO ORGANISE. The organisation of domestic servants in various parts of New Zealand caused additional worry to heads of households recently. Now difficulties are in store for German housewives. The Fatherland's army of servant girls — 3,000,000 strong — is to be organised into a " union" under the militant

leadership of the powerful Social Democratic party. A National commission, with headquarters in Hamburg, and including representatives from the cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort, Le:psig, and Nuremberg-, was established last month, and was to proceed without delay to work out plans f;r a great nat onal organisation. Propaganda will meantime be carried on through the column* of the Socialist woman's organ, Equa'ity. which will de\ote a special department to "clearing up" the minds of servant girls with reference to their

" enslaved" positions and the necessity of | " liberation" by means of close organisation. ; At the Nat.onal Conference in Berlin, I at wh.ch the project of a central organisa- I t on was launched, speakers explained that ' the difficulty of conducting piopaganda was mainly responsible for the slow growth of the organisation idea. It was said to be impossible to reach the ser\ants through j the pest, as letleis and pamphlets thus fell ] into the h&*ids of employers. In Hamburg, Socialistic working men, such as masons, carpenters, paperhangers, and plumbers, had placed propaganda material in the

hands of servants surreptitiously, while working on employers' premises. The main purposes of the new central organisation are summarised as follows: — Ihe raising- of servants to the standard of other workpeople, such as members of men's trade unions. The inauguration of a working agreement whereby servants sha'l Le enabled to dictate minimum wages, minimum working hours, and generalh to control their "liberty," including the right to strike. The abolition of professional registry offices, and the substitution of cmploj-

ment bureaus under the control of the Servants' Union. Leading speakers of the Berlin conference declare that "masteis and mistresses muet be taught to regard servant girls as their human equals" ; that the rural proletariat must also l.c educated so that farmers' daughters coming to the cit.es may no longer have their ignorance exploited by the ser\ant employing classes"; that "servant girls are more brutalised by emplo\'ers of the midd'e classes than in the higher classes": and that "the slavish obedience no.v c'otnanded of servant girls must be brol.en."

(Photos by Thiem and Severin.)

OPENING OF THE W AIM ATE PUBLIC BATHS

PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN PRETORIA. The May-Otway Fibe Alabm, a Dunedin invention, is meeting with favour in the Transvaal. Intimation has been received that the public buildings at Pretoria depicted above have been fitted up with the alarm.