CHAPTER XXVII
THE WOMEN OF THE DOMINION
NEW ZEALAND was the first country in the world to give women the vote. At first they were not eligible for election to Parliament, but later this bar was removed. New Zealand claims also that she had the first woman mayor. This was a Mrs. Yates, of Onehunga, a small town near Auckland. On the death of her husband, who had been the mayor, she was elected to fill his place, and I understand she handled her job very well.
The New Zealand women got the vote as far back as 1893, and that without any militant tactics. Few of them seemed interested in woman suffrage, yet since getting it they have gone to the polls in almost as great numbers as the men. One reason for this is a law making it compulsory for people to vote or lose their privilege. The names of the legal voters in each district are enrolled before every election. Any person who does not appear at the polls must give a good reason for his absence, or else when the next roll is prepared his name will be struck from the list.
There is no women’s party in New Zealand, and it is often said that the women’s vote has not had a distinct influence except in matters of infant welfare, maternity care, and the regulation of the liquor traffic. I put the question to a New Zealand woman, asking her:
“What has woman suffrage done for New Zealand?”
“I will tell you one thing it has done,” she quickly replied. “It has closed twenty-five per cent. of all the saloons for good and it has closed all of them after six o’clock in the evening. In some parts of New Zealand there is absolute prohibition by local option. One town I have especially in mind was noted for its drunkenness and disorder. It is now one of the quietest and most respectable of communities. It has cut down its police force, and for want of other use its jail has been made the headquarters of the Salvation Army.”
Prohibition is a live issue in New Zealand, and some of the people believe the country will yet go bone dry. To get a license to sell liquor a man must show that he provides also food and lodging, so that all the saloon-keepers here really run hotels. Liquor may be sold only between the hours of seven in the morning and six in the evening, and one does not see drunken men staggering home at all times of night.
It used to be that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred women served the liquor at the hotels. The prettier the barmaid the greater was her custom and the higher were her wages. But this has been changed by a law forbidding the renewal of barmaids’ licenses. Nowadays, if one does come across a woman behind the bar in a public house, she is far from being the pretty, captivating barmaid of romance. More than likely she is the elderly widow of a hotel-keeper unable to support herself in any other line of business and so allowed to continue in this one during her lifetime.
So far not as many girls in New Zealand go out to work for their living as with us. Before the World War few daughters of well-to-do homes thought of such a thing. But when the Dominion sent forty-one per cent. of her men to the front, their places had to some extent to be taken by girls and women. Even the banks, which are most conservative, opened their doors to girl clerks. Some of the women workers, having had a taste of independence, like to work, and there is growing up a class like our woman stenographers, bank clerks, and journalists. Many of the young women have taken up nursing, getting their training in the hospitals, which are all operated by the government or under government supervision. Those who were sent to Europe during the World War were nurses of at least ten years’ hospital experience and they stood exceptionally high among the army nursing corps of the Allies.
The working women of New Zealand are, like the men, well protected by law as to their hours, wages, and conditions of employment. The government Department of Labour is watchful of their interests and welfare, and has woman inspectors who visit the factories and other places of business where women and girls are employed to see that the laws are obeyed. By defining a factory as “any building, office, or place in which two or more persons are employed directly or indirectly in any handicraft,” the New Zealand government brings even the smallest establishments under the law, and thus protects women from sweatshop conditions. In offices and stores their hours of labour are fixed at forty-eight a week with an allowed overtime of not more than one hundred and twenty hours in a year, or three hours in any one day. In most of the manufacturing industries women work forty-four hours a week. The law requires that they shall be paid for overtime at the rate of time and a half. Minimum wages are fixed by law in practically all trades in which women are employed, including work in the stores. These minimum rates vary with the particular nature of the work and the worker’s skill and experience.
The law also forbids the employment of any girls under fifteen years of age, and those under eighteen are not permitted to work for wages unless they have passed through the fourth standard, or grade, of the public schools. It is illegal to employ girls or “learners” in any trade without paying them wages while learning. In the past, some factories were found to be taking on inexperienced girls and paying them nothing, telling them that their services were not worth wages at the start, but that they would be paid as soon as they were “experienced.” At the end of a few weeks or months these employers would often dismiss the girls, saying they had not made good, and then bring in a fresh lot on the same terms. Employers are required to provide sanitary, well lighted and ventilated workrooms equipped with fire escapes.
These labour laws are by no means dead letters. Employers are fined for every transgression of them. I have just been looking over a list of cases illustrating this fact. One man who cut short the dinner hour of his girls paid ten dollars and costs, and another, a restaurant owner, who kept his waitresses at work for eleven and a half hours in one day, had to pay a fine of thirty-six dollars, although one of the girls had had three afternoons off that week. Another restaurant man was fined seven and a half dollars and costs for employing his waitresses fifty-two hours a week, and a third was fined for not allowing one of his woman workers an hour for her meals. In the town of Napier a storekeeper employing women for more than forty-eight hours in each of two succeeding weeks was fined forty dollars. The government inspectors learned of a baker who kept his two daughters working all night. They arrested him and fined him five dollars for each girl, warning him that on the next offence the fine would be fifty dollars. The saleswomen in stores must have seats and must be allowed to use them. I have before me reports of cases of merchants who were fined for not furnishing such seats.
The government also protects women from being worked at hours that will necessitate their going home late at night. One labour inspector reported that he found a factory in which a set of girls were put on from eight to ten in the morning and then taken off until one. They were worked from one until five, and again from seven to nine, making altogether eight hours. Another lot of girls worked from ten until twelve, from three until seven, and from nine until eleven. This arrangement did not require more than the legal time, but the officials thought it was bad for the girls to have to go home so late at night, and not have their regular time for rest.
The working day of hotel helpers, many of whom are women, is defined by law, and meals cannot be served outside the regular hours. If dinner is limited to the hours between six and eight, the traveller arriving at a hotel at eight-fifteen cannot get anything to eat until breakfast, no matter how hungry he may be. Even a world-famous prima donna found she could not get dinner at an unusual hour at her hotel in Wellington. She was accustomed to postponing her dinner until after her concerts, and asked to have it served at eleven o’clock. But the hotel manager refused. It would have meant keeping several servants after hours and paying them overtime, and he was unwilling to do so.
The Maoris do not make good servants but prefer to lead their own easy-going lives. This belle’s robe is handwoven from New Zealand flax. She wears also the greenstone charm without which no native woman is fully dressed.
The town of Nelson has the reputation of having “the prettiest girls in the country,” and “seven women to one man.” Some of its surplus women find work in the hop fields.
The women working in factories are not so well organized as the men, and even where they do the same work they do not, as a rule, get as much pay. Most of the women in the manufacturing industries are in the clothing, hat-making, tailoring, printing, and shoe-making trades.
In New Zealand there is no real servant class, such as our immigrant girls from Europe. The native Maoris do not make good house workers and most of the Chinese are in business for themselves, running laundries, fruit shops, and market gardens, though some of them are employed as cooks. The people who first came here from the British Isles were not of the lower classes. New Zealand was never a penal colony and men came voluntarily, seeking better opportunities than those they had found in the old country. Some came for their health, some followed the gold rush in the middle of the last century, and some were remittance men, members of the finest of the old British families. Moreover, many of the settlers acquired lands of their own, and the children of independent landholders do not care to go out as domestic servants. Therefore, domestic workers are scarce, and in the average New Zealand household the whole family shares in the work of the home. Every child has his duties, and, I may add, is generally paid for performing them. Nearly every ten-year-old has a savings account which grows with the money earned at home.
In the country it is almost impossible to get servants, and in the towns the young women prefer to work in the factories, notwithstanding the fact that when the matter of board is taken into consideration, wages there are often less than those of house servants.
When a family does secure a servant girl she frequently rules the household, besides fixing her own wages and hours off. She usually demands one half holiday every week, every Sunday afternoon, and the whole day free every other Sunday.
The New Zealand government has not overlooked the servant girl. The working man’s premier, Sir Richard Seddon, found that the employment agencies were cheating young women who came to them to get work, and that they often sent girls to improper places. So he started free public employment offices for domestic workers, which are still carried on.
In the report of a woman supervisor of these offices I find some interesting comments on how servants should be treated to make them efficient. She advises mothers to make domestic duties more attractive to their daughters, and to work with and teach them. To mistresses she says:
“A mistress who has but one servant should work with her during the morning hours. Under such circumstances a girl will become very proficient, and the domestic machinery will move along on oiled bearings. The mistress who does nothing to help her servant and is always hurrying her wears the girl out. It is she who brings domestic service into bad repute, and she who is driving the girls into the factories.
“Servants are becoming scarcer every year. Even the old women who used to be a trouble to the office have found employment, nearly all of them in the country. Some girls engage places and then do not go to them. Perhaps they find something better in the meantime and break their engagements. I would suggest that the government provide fines for such offences, as they cause great inconvenience. If an employer fails to take a girl after engaging her, the servant is entitled to a week’s pay, so it seems only fair that a girl be penalized if she fails to report when she has accepted a place.”
Just here I want to say a word about the pretty girls of New Zealand. These islands are full of them. The climate gives them the rosiest of cheeks, and they look much like the women of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In manners and dress they will compare favourably with those of the United States or Europe. They read the papers and are able to discuss the political issues of the hour with each other and with the men.
The women here do not go in for club life quite as much as do our women in the States. I think one reason for that is the fact that the population is more scattered through the country on farms than gathered together in towns. Another reason may be the fact that the New Zealanders take a great interest in games, and the girls and boys and men and women join in tennis, golf, swimming, and other outdoor sports.