a smile, if you treat her well, and refrain from displaying your superiority. But she must be allowed her freedom, and she must be well paid, and have ample consideration. The old retainer, who stayed on for years, because she loved the family, never existed, except in isolated instances, in Australia.

A general servant, if she can be got, is often paid from £1 to 25/- weekly, for servce in a small private family. A cook and laundress gets considerably more. The little parlourmaid expects £1 or 25/a week. Women employed in hotels and restaurants, as well as those who work in laundries, are paid according to an award. In a hotel the waitress must be paid 38/-, and the housemaid not less than 37/-. The cook, if a woman, may receive £2 10/-, but an efficient worker can command more. In a laundry the washer gets 30/-, the starcher 28/-, and the starch ironer 27/6. The shirt and collar machinist is paid at least 30/- per week. The day workers are paid 5/- a day. All these must be paid extra for overtime, and there is a heavy fine for the employer who neglects to attend to the hours in which his people work.

Despite high wages, this service is not popular, and work in a private house is even less so. Many women who were brought up in homes where two or more servants were kept thirty or more years ago, now live in a small house, and do their own work, because they find it almost mpossible to get help. There are many reasons for the widespread dislike of domestic service, and in a community where there is equal opportunity for all, or nearly so, they must carry more weight than in older lands, where there is a tradition of subservience. Despite continual and strong protest, the Australian girl still believes that if she does house work for wages, she must lose social status, and she prefers factory work, though with it she gets no board and no lodging, and is therefore not so well paid.

Factory work is well paid in all the States, and highest in N.S. Wales, though, in the opinion of many able to judge, it is not yet sufficiently remu

nerated even here. Among factory workers, the tailoress stands highest socially, and receives the highest pay. In N.S.W. the last award gives the coat maker over 21 years of age 38/- per week. The award is, of course, the minimum. Many expert women who undertake order work receive from £2 to £3 per week. Other workers are paid less, but none are low. The last award gives the dressmaker's assistant, who may be a schoolgirl, unable, despite excellent public school teaching, to use a needle properly, 15/- per week. This award, which will probably have the effect of putting many "little" dressmakers out of business, is condemned even by those who are in favour of high wages, and may lead to a demand that women should be allowed to sit on Boards which consider the awards in women's trades.

For many years in every State, except Victoria, which was in favour of Protection, the few factories which were brought into existence, were built without knowledge, and carried on without supervision. The Government of the Mother State did not possess a Factory Act until 1897, when one was passed, and the first inspectors appointed-one woman and two men. The area of the Act was very limited, though the area over which the inspectors had to travel was as large as half Europe. At that time readymade clothing was imported, and the first clothing factory in N.S.W. was begun in that year. Since then awards to increase wages and lessen hours, to close shops early, and insist on ventilation and every other sanitary provision, have brought about a revolution, slow and silent, but very effectual.

In large factories now dining-rooms are provided, and the workers as well are given morning tea, an institution thoroughly Australian. In the bestmanaged, a matron looks after the spiritual wellbeing of the hundreds of girls in her charge, and in some a trained nurse gives all her time and care to those who suffer from minor ailments. The consequence of this attention is visible in the de

meanour of the girls. The Australian factory worker who works in a well-managed factory, under capable supervision, is a self-respecting young woman, whom it would be an insult to patronise, and only those who work in ill-managed establishments forfeit their status.

Women's Associations.

The Young Women's Christian Association has for many years done excellent work among the young women of Australia. The first association was formed in Geelong, Victoria, in 1872, but the time was not ready for it; there were difficulties, and it disbanded. The next attempt was made in N.S. Wales, and an association was permanently established in Sydney in 1880, when Mrs. F. Barker, wife of the Anglican Bishop, and Mrs. Chadwick, decided to open a home for young women under its auspices. Mrs. Goodlet was elected president, and the home was opened in 1881.

Melbourne formed its association in 1882. In South Australia, Lady Colton had begun work on similar lines in 1879, and in 1884 her society became a branch of the Y.W.C.A. Hobart followed in 1885. In Queensland the work was begun in Rockhampton, an important northern town, in 1888, and Brisbane, the capital, followed in 1891.

In 1895 the work of the Association was organised, and each branch was connected with the parent association. Departments were assigned their work, and new enthusiasm inspired the workers. Each city now possesses a home worthy of its work. In Sydney, as in the other cities, there is not only a home and an office, but also a restaurant, a hall for meetings, and rooms where classes on many subjects may meet. The association also carries on two hostels, in one of which a room is available at any hour of the night, for women or girls who may by accident find themselves homeless in a strange city. It supports an officer who meets steamers and trains, advises homeless girls, and generally assists any young woman who may apply

to her, or the association for help. In innumerable instances the Y.W.C.A. has, by the work of this officer, been able to restore wanderers to their friends, after all other ways of seeking them had been exhausted.

In Melbourne the Association possesses a fine building, towards which one family gave £15,000. In Adelaide, the first permanent home of the association was a Memorial to Lady Colton, its energetic . founder. In 1907 the associations affiliated with the World's Y.W.C.A., and this step has widened interest, and offered to Australian members an extended horizon.

The Girls' Realm Guild began its work in Sydney in 1902, and has now branches all over N.S. Wales, and a membership of about 3000. There are guilds in other States, but they are not yet very flourishing. The object of the Guild is to help girls in need of help, and for this purpose it enrols members among those who are more fortunate, and in various ways raises money to pay fees for classes or apprenticeship, or in any other way possible to assist girls in poor circumstances to learn how best to earn a living. Some of those assisted pay back the loan which helped them to independence. There are generally about fifteen girls being thus assisted, and the Guild has, since its inception, helped over 70 young women.

The North.

One part of our great island--the north-has in its scanty population a very small proportion of women. Two, who both lived there for a time, have written charming books about it, but neither Mrs. Gunn, who describes her life on a station in the Never Never, or Miss Masson, who lived at Darwin for a year, succeeds in making our tropical North attractive as a place of residence. The climate may be endured by men, who live an out-door life, but women, tied to domestic duties, suffer much. They cannot, as in other tropical countries, have abundant help. The blackfellow, with his lubra, ineffi

cient at best, and often when most needed, filled with an irresistible longing for "the bush," is dying out. The Chinaman, an excellent servant generally, is going home, for Australia insists on being "white." Few women of any white race will stay there to do house work, while high wages offer in a temperate climate, and the housekeeper's burden becomes heavy.

An American expert says of life in the Northern Territory" The white man individually may exist; racially, he cannot persist." To this critics reply "Not proven;" but the idea remains, and since few mothers at present stay there for long, proof for one side or the other is difficult. A few women go north as nurses from the Australian Inland Mission, a few officials try to make homes there, and a settler or two, with their wives, may be found in favoured spots, but on the whole we tacitly agree that for the present, while wide spaces in a cooler climate are waiting for settlers, women need not attempt to conquer the heat of North Australia. Some time ago a commissioner, sent by the Welsh settlers in Patagonia, made investigations, and, after a visit, reported favourably on the prospects of Patagonians who might decide to make a change from the cold South to the warm North. But we have had no more visitors from there, and we conclude that the commissioner's clients were not so easily convinced as he was.

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Society," as it is in Europe, does not exist in Australia. With no queen, no court, no hereditary nobility, we know nothing of aristocracy, except what we glean from the few admirable isolated specimens who come to us as Governors. Nor have we, as in the United States, an exclusive "Four Hundred," or an association of self-satisfied first families. Here are no railway magnates, no multimillionaires, and we display no grandiose mansions, and are dazzled by no diamond horse, shoes." There are among us, it is true, a few knights whose wives assume the title of lady, but as they have been, in many instances, lifted to the little pinnacle by

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