1941-04-28 — Page 43

THE CHINA MAIL, “APRIL 28, 1941.

Bringing Up "Father

OH-DEAR ME I'M ALL IN WORKING

AN OFFK ISNTAS EASY

AS I HAD THOUGHT-

IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK- TIME TO

QUIT-

Page 11 "By George MacManus

GRACIOUS+I'M !

SO TIRED

MUST TAKE A TAXI HOME-

OH-ME-IT'S GRAND TO GET HOME AND JUST RELAX-1 AM REALLY ALL N-

?

COME ON - MAGGIE -- GET YOUR THINGS ON-WE'RE GOING TO THE OPERA-

Cop 1941, King Peatsers Syndu an, Im

A PAGE FOR WOMEN

WOMEN in the New Britain.. They need freedom and equality

WHAT

Women are beginning

to ask themselves, have they got to look forward do, cung the Wae is over?

The very question is part of the mood of victory Yet before utie tries to answer it, it is salutary to glance at what is at stake.

For women,

everything is at stake, even their right to regard themselves as hunnan beings, with souls and mind. and hearts of their own.

Wherever the Swastika flies, women are degraded; no longer citizen and eumades with men. but mere beasts of burden and breeders of cannon folder Free- dom either to think or to feel or I believe is denied them

Wo to any girl whose heart goes out to a "non Alyan" Woe le any other who seeks to mould her children to any ideal of her DWN Woe to atty woman whose cunyanitee reject, the worship of the dominant and brutal State

The bonds that drop on civil- ans rather than on soldiers are logically darented, The first Nazi target is the woman in the home,

ي

*

Women see this. They are giv- ing all they have to winning the war, just as men are. Tremend- ous have been the calls on their courage and endurance.

Invasion, If it comes will be a

ing,

yet greater call and first on them. I relatively far below those of the They will meet it. Endurance has, men whose work they were doing too, been backed up by energetic and whose places they were fill action, In every service to which they have been summoned,

They rejoice that the full call to work is at last sent out to them. Called in this war to equal service, women are much nearer the equal treatment than they were In 1914-18. They are, however, The difference is, of course,

In many industries, indeed, the wur-time employment of women was used as a means of pulling down normal rates and lowering post-war wages.

By Mary Agnes Hamilton

A member of Arthur Greenwood's 'Reconstruc- tion Ministry; Labour M.P. for Blackburn, 1929-31; Delegate to the League of Nations Assembly; ex- Governor of the B.B.C.; Alderman of the London County Council; Novelist and Biographer.

by no means there yet.

mainly due to the greater strength Political equality has not of Trade Unionism, and to the brought economic equality, yet. | fact that it stands solid for the Women in the Auxiliary Services. rate for the job as the means of as in Civil Defence, are not paid safeguarding the common inter- men's rates. When they are in- ests of men and women. jured, or their homes destroyed Two great Unions the Na- by enemy action, their compensa- tional Union of General and Muni- tion rates are lower,

cipal Workers and the Transport In industry, on the other hand, and General Workers have led their position is far better than it the fight for equal treatment for was in the last war Thanks to substituted women. Each covers Trade Union action and the pow- a considerable women's member- erful stand of Mr. Ernest Bevin, | ship.

on which the home depends, whi- ever earns it, is enough to cover the expenses of a family on humane and decent standard.

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minds to making its conditions than half a million houses short such as to give millions of crafts-even of clearing away slums; and women the chance to exercise immeasurably further short (quite their human skill.

apart from air raid damage and They will, of course, do it all destruction) of providing every the better if they are given free-family with the sort of house that dom of choice as to whether or can be made into a home. not it is the job for which they are fitted, and if we, as the com-

The woman who is compelled. as so many are, to go out work at the very stage in her life when young children most need her care, is not free; nor is her husband.

It may well be that a State system of family allowances is required, to meet this situation fully. Whether or no, two points are clear: the interests of wo- man and man are at one in de- manding that wages are fixed on the basis of the job, and not on the sex of the worker who hap-munity, recognise how vitally im- pens to do it-an end, once and for portant their craft is to our en- all, of "men's rates" and "wo- tire purpose. men's rates"--and that the basic

The home makers have a right wage is set at a living rate.

Some would say that, as a con- to houses that make their task sequence, fewer women would possible. We are, as it is. more be employed. If so, they are, in effect, saying that women are in fact, now employed because they are cheap and not because they are competent.

Actually, women are to-day. proving competent at B vast range of jobs that need doing, and which they did not, do before,

•

their working conditions, hours If what has been won by their a living rate for the job, does and general welfare have been efforts and by those of the other safeguarded from the first.

Unions is to be maintained, work- ing women must join up in far greater numbers,

The factory Code is maintained. Health is cared for. Moreover, in at least three great lines of If women displace men simply employment, women doing men's because they are cheaper, they work are being paid men's rates at once pull down the wage rates In the Munitions industry, in of men and condemn themselves Transport and in Boots and Shoes, to miserable conditions, If. on the Trade Union effort has won for other hand, they stand firm on women doing works, normally done the rate for the job, they serve by men the same wage rates, the common cause of all who work bonus and cost of living addition, to live. as would have been earned by the men whom they replace...

10.

We shall be rich or poor, after the war, în proportion as "We"all work. What the establishment of

mainly mean is that women will, at last, be given the chance to do well, because under "good: "eón, ditions, the great job of home, keeping.

After all," "gainful employment" is not the only kind of work that adds, to the real wealth of the community. The endless and in- dispensable Work of vinking Da house into a home is the point of the entire effort,

10

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We all work, "invördör to make a home; för "all of us, the hours. "No doubt, as in 1918, the bulk we spend there are our best of the women now doing war work the reason and jüstification of the This was not the case in the last of whatever kind will, once the others. Those on whom the doing war. To the end, the great ma- war is over, go back to their of that job asperids will always jority of women war workers, al- homes and work there. On that, be tho pillars, of the community though many of them were better it is their right to have freedom It is more than time that, this . -minute “détail, the mentally paid than they had been before of choice. They can only have essential work was recognised | Makatohy, «girl-friend advised were on rates absolutely low and that freedom if the normal wage, lus such, and, that we set our him to get an 'alarm, cloak..

"Whan, Hoa Nhau exclaimadi l {hja,TifoˇWäs:browded with last

Among the many absurdities

of our present social system none is more glaring than that fact that the thorough application of science and knowledge to the house is, at present, in the main confined to the dwellings of the relatively well-to-do.

Seldom does the unpaid home maker enjoy the luxuries of labour-saving devices; the chromium or bakelite tap and sink; the well-planned content- ent kitchen win everything to hand the ample cupboard and central heating arrangements.

Yet it is they who need these things; we must and can provide them.

`REACH THOSE WHO

CAN AFFORD TO BUY

THROUGH

"The China Mail'

||THE PAPER THAT GETS

INTO THE HOME

"Earliest with the