THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 1909. THE DOMESTIC SERVANT QUESTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3103, 28 January 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 1909. THE DOMESTIC SERVANT QUESTION.

A Wellington qonternporary the "New Zealand Times'"—discussing the shortage in domestic help, remarks: —"The scarcity of female labour for domestic work is very real, and very exasperating;, we t do not attempt to deny, but it seems only fair that those people who are suffering from the shortage should do something for themselves. This has been accomplished to some extent by Hawke's Bay ladies, who have imported servants through the British Women's Emigrant Association. The Hawke's Bay plan is capable of

extension. It is true that the employers who adopt it take the risk that the servants may desert them on arriving in this free country, but the urgent need for help makes a little risk worth running. At all events, it is mare desirable for the people who would receive the benefits of such a scheme to also accept ) the possibility of disappointment than for the State to shoulder a new and grave responsibility which it is not called upon to undertake. In any case, what has gone wrong with Private Enterprise?" We cannot tell "what has gone wrong" with the Ministerial organ that it should advocate people endeavouring to help themselves, for the Government that it supports have certainly never 'inculcated the doctrine of self help. But why is it that the Government are so inert in the face of such a serious question as the shortage in domestic help? A Government that have been alert enough to apply State help to all sorts of domestic conditions, stand unwilling to make the slightest effort to assist thousands of wives and mothers in this Dominion who are suffering under a very real burden. That it is merely women, scattered throughout the country. who will not and could not and don't want to form themselves into a voting machine, is, perhaps, one reason why the Government are so dilatory. There are no powerful labour unions to urge that the Government shall take proper action in this matter of scarcity of domestic service. There is no one, ( or no union, or no organisation to be placated—there are only thousands of the most deserving people in the Dominion to he assisted, and if the Government do not take any action, well, as a Government, they may depend upon it that they will not suffer. But surely the statesmen who form our Cabinet can see in the domestic servant problem a possibility, nay more a certainty, of great harm arising to the country unless some vigorous steps are taken to alleviate the trouble. The "New Zealand Times'' points a shaky finger, metaphorically speaking, at the action of some Hawke's Bay ladies, who have imported servants, but we wonder whether our Wellington contemporary really thinks that the ladies in question are amongst the poorest in the land, especially when they are quite prepared to take the risk of their servants leaving them'as soon as imported? We do not suppose that the Ministerial journal can possibly understand that they are many who can and would gladly pay a domestic servant good wages, but could not possibly entertain the idea, on account of the expense involved, of importing one. The Government know, or should know, and should act accordingly, that for successful land settlement women are almost as necessary as men. The greatest trials and hardships, and privations of human life are usually borne most patiently, most heroically and most successfully by families, or by men and women united in the closest tie, rather than by single individuals. But where the chief trouble will arise, as the result of the shortage of domestic assistance, will be in still further decreasing the already declining birth rate. Wives will not become mothers, or the number of the family will be very strictly limited, if the bearing of children means that the wife and mother, as the consequence of a natural affection and the performing of a duty by the State, has to become simply a domestic drudge to her family. The position in New Zealand is that there i 3 great scarcity of domestic labour, and owing to the prosperity ot the country, and its limited population, there is no prospect of the scarcity being disposed of unless the Government make a determined effort to induce large numbers of suitable women to make a home in New Zealand.