The Woman’s Movement in England.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4371, 9 February 1909, Page 3

The Woman’s Movement in England.

NOTES BY A NEW-ZEALANDER

DEPLORABLE CONDITION OF

THE WORKERS,

On Thursday afternoon, la t week, a reception was given to Mrs Kirkby on her return to Auckland after a! visit to the Old Country, by some of the members of the Women’s Political League. During her stay in London, Mrs Kirkby saw a great deal of the women’s movement, and gave it as her opinion that a successful issue is close at hand. The suffragists are winning not only by reason of the justice of the cause, but mainly by sheer force of enthusiasm, the enthusiasm that animates their every action, and infects every broad-minded person with whom they come in contact. Anyone visiting the Old Country after a few years spent in New Zealand (Mrs Kirkby states) cannot but be horrified at the status of the workers, more especially the women workers of the United Kingdom. The long hours and low wages, the petty tyrannies of overseers, etc., the poverty and drunkenness, are appalling when contrasted with the conditions prevailing here. The labour market is flooded with lady clerks and typists; toilers who come under the provisions of the Factory Act work 54 hours per week, and the law insists that the sanitary conditions must be observed in these places, but there is practically no limit to the hours the shop assistants are obliged to work —in the poorer neighbourhoods the shops are open even on Sunday morning. But beneath all this there ,'s the dreadful class of “ home workers,” for whom there is no legislation whatever, and who are entirely at the mercy of the sweater and middleman. The Truck Act is broken daily in the British factories, and the great majority of the girls do not even know what the Act is or how its provisions should benefit them. The Factory Act, which hangs in every factory, is also broken over and over again, but what is the use of the girls .complaining when there are dozens of unemployed ready to take their place ? The streets are crowded with immoral women, many of whom have been driven there by starvation, and drunkenness is on the increase among women of all classes. It is, therefore, surely time that women were given a vote, in order to try and raise their own sex, as the male legislators seem incapable of doing so. One poor woman sent a small worn gold ring (a veritable widow’s mite) towards the funds of the suffragists, “ because they were going to put down sweating.” On the whole, Mrs Kirkby came back quite convinced that New Zealand is the best country in the world for the working class.