THE SWEATING SYSTEM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1849, 5 February 1889, Page 4

THE SWEATING SYSTEM.

A “Lancashire Lass” contributes the following to the correspondence now appearing in the Otago Daily Times on the “ Sweating System ” : Sir, —I am a| Lancashire lass, yet not altogether a new chum, for it is nigh 10 years since I bade good-bye to the auld folks at Bolton station on my way to Glasgow en route for New Zealand. lam not much, Sir—-just what is called a white worker; and as perhaps you wont know the meaning of this word, I may tell you that it includes the making up and finishing of all classes of ladies’ and children’s underclothes, Before I left the old country I was making 9s a week, but on account of the competition (so it was said; I think it was meanness) prices were made so low that we had to work from 8 a.m, till 9 or 10 p.m. six days in the week to make our 9s, and if by chance a stain of oil from the machine got on any of the garments I was fined Id to 3d a stain according to the size. A weary, weary week’s work for 9a. I had heard about the grandeur of New Zealand, and the splendid climate—and though lam still an old maid, I may have been influenced by the thought that there were not so many lasses here—and hearing of the high prices given for female labour, I determined to try my fortunes in the Great Britain ot the South. When X came here I found wages as high as I expected. Clothes were dearer, however, and all the little nicnacks that a Lancashire lass likes to adorn herself with (such as ribbons, &c.) were twice, and sometimes three times dearer than at Home, However, I got on very well for a few years and managed to save a little, until suddenly there was a change, and prices commenced to be lowered till they came to such a pitch that I found, instead of saving I was living on my savings of the years before; and then I found that we were back again to the system we had in Manchester, of having to work from 8 a.m. till 9 p.m., six days per week, for 9s—not that there was any necessity for it, but fair greed on the part of the merchant, who wanted to make a little extra nrofit by the sweat of the seamstress’ brow. I had often heard of the poor prices paid in the South of Ireland, but never thought we would be troubled with them here. It’s a pity that people, when they leave the old country, don’t leave their meanness and greed behind also.