Australia, New Zealand and some islands of the South seas

by Frank G. Carpenter

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.