Girls in Clothing Factories

 Whenever public attention is directed in any way to the earnings of the women and girls employed in clothing factories, astonishment is expressed that persons of ordinary intelligence should prefer a life of drudgery and hard living on low wages to the easier work, comparative independence, and better pay of domestic service. The strike of needle-women who were working for Messrs. BEATH, SCHIESS, and Co. has again brought the subject into prominence, and our columns show that the public mind is once more greatly exercised in the endeavour to account for what is regarded by many as a strange perversity. All householders know the difficulty of obtaining servants, and the restraints they have to place upon themselves in a variety of ways in order to keep them. So valuable are really good household servants that they can command almost any terms or indulgences. So far from experiencing any difficulty in obtaining situations, competent domestics are run after, and can exercise a wide discretion in choosing a home; while the most inefficient BRIDGET that ever afflicted a family or caused the heart of the British matron to wax hot within her, can always find people willing to give liberal remuneration for very imperfect service and a capacity for destruction almost superhuman. According to the latest reports of the labour market the following are the rates of wages which household servants are receiving:— General servants, from £30 to £40 per annum, housemaids, £30 to £45 per annum, female cooks, for private families £40 to £60, for hotels £50 to £100 per annum, nurses, £25 to £40 per annum, laundresses, £40 to £52 ; cooks and laundresses, £35 to £50. These are the nominal payments at the present time, but the following significant statement is attached to the list :— " In fact, wages are altogether a secondary consideration, and girls can obtain almost any wages they like to demand."

Let us now contrast the position of the seamstress with that of the domestic servant. We have seen that the latter can take her pick of a score of situations whenever she feels inclined to shift her quarters, and can always command board, lodging, and liberal payment. How is it with the former? Let a few particulars furnished by Messrs. BEATH, SCHIESS, and Co and some of their employés tell. It is alleged that before the reductions first class coatmakers could earn 30s a week but that is an amount reached by only one woman in 50. Vestmakers could make 20s a week, trousersmakers about 16s, and buttonhole hands from 17s to 20s. These sums must be reduced by 20 per cent, or one fifth, in order to arrive at the possible weekly earnings under the new scale. To give some idea of the quantity of work that has to be done in order to realise the amounts mentioned, we give the rates per article :—Paget coats, 3s 5d for plain and 4s 2d for bound, trousers 10d per pair, vests, 8d. Knickerbocker hands are said to be wretchedly paid, the best of them only being able to earn 12s to 15s. per week, while the majority do not average more than 10s. But these starvation figures do not reveal the whole situation. The pittances received by the different workers are not made during the regular factory hours. In order to earn the totals which are flourished in the face of the public whenever inquiry is made into the system of white slavery existing in our midst, women must take work home with them, and sit up sewing every night until 10 or 11 o'clock. It is evident that there is very little comfort or freedom about such a life as this. It is impossible to imagine anything more wretched, wearisome, monotonous and unhealthy :—

Band and gusset, and seam,

Seam, and gusset and band,

Till the heart is sick and the brain

benumb'd,

 As well as the weary hand."

It is not to be supposed, however that the majority of the seamstresses thus toil from morning to night, "sewing at once, with a double thread, a shroud  as well as a" coat, vest, or other article of apparel. It is only those, as a rule, who are entirely dependent on their own exertions for the support of themselves and others, who "stitch, stitch, stitch," from cock crow "till the stars shine through  the roof," and make the "show" salaries which the managers parade as a complete answer to all who say that factory women are underpaid. A large number of girls live with their parents, and most of them only work in factory hours These, no doubt, enjoy a great deal of liberty and leisure—more, probably, than is altogether good for them—but they buy both at a sacrifice of pay which must bring their earnings down to a sum not sufficient to cover the cost of board, lodging, and clothes. Girls so employed no doubt contribute something to the family exchequer, but they work at a trade which will not enable them to be self supporting except on conditions which make life a burden. The position seems to be as follows:—If a woman wants to make a bare living by sewing, she must work much harder, and enjoy far less freedom, than a household servant. If she wants more liberty and easier employment than the average domestic, she cannot make enough to render her independent of others.

Still, there is the puzzling fact, which we cannot ignore, notwithstanding the advantages of domestic service and the drawbacks of factory work, that thousands of girls choose the latter. How is this to be accounted for ? No doubt the distaste evinced by Australian girls for household duties is the result of many causes. For some mysterious reason, they have decided that sewing for starvation wages is a more " genteel "— hateful word—employment than scrubbing floors or cooking dinners. How the notion originated that there is something degrading connected with the discharge of domestic duties, we are at a loss to understand. Ever since mankind has had a history, the best and noblest women have felt proud to keep houses in order and to do the work of the home. If the refined and highly educated see nothing degrading in busying themselves about domestic matters, surely the ordinary sewing machine girl need not consider such things as beneath her dignity. The idea is simply the offspring of silly vanity, and should be got rid of as soon as possible. These factory girls in nine cases out of ten wed men who are not able to allow them a servant, consequently they come at last to the " degradation " to avoid which they have probably sacrificed substantial advantages, but as they do not bring experience or training to the work they are compelled at length to undertake, they cannot make the best of the situation, and frequently bring unhappiness into their married life through their want of skill in womanly occupations. One of the reasons why girls are said to dislike domestic service is that the confinement it entails does not allow of those acquaintances being formed amongst members of the other sex which frequently result in matrimony. Our own opinion is that household servants in Victoria have plenty of time and opportunity for courtship, &c., and certainly their training fits them to be far better wives than those who are supposed to have greater chances of entering into conjugal relations. The demand for household servants is great, and the supply of female labour is abundant. The question is—Can anything be done to overcome the objections which at present restrain women from selling their labour in the form which is most wanted? We shall endeavour to answer this query at some future time.

Argus (Melbourne, Vic. ), 1882 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11563202