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.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A COUNTRY WITHOUT A POORHOUSE
HOW would you like to be sure of a pension from Uncle Sam in your old age? How would you like to know that if your income after sixty-five years of age was less than three hundred and ninety dollars a year, you would get from the government at Washington at least enough money to keep you alive?
That is the situation here in New Zealand. Every citizen is assured that if old age finds him without sufficient money to live on, the government will provide up to a maximum sum of one hundred and ninety-five dollars a year. To widows with children larger pensions are paid.