MISCEl,I,ANEOUS NEWS 



thoroughly discussed in the '' Third German Conference for the Protection 

 of Working Women " [Dyitte Deutsche Konferenz zur Fdnierung der Arhei- 

 terinnen-Inteyessen) held in Berlin on the 19th. February. 



In Prof. Auhagen's report of the results of the enquiry, the question 

 of rural labour is stated to be a question chiefly affecting women. The 

 female population in many places is actuated by a strong repugnance to 

 agricultural labour, and an eager desire for a city life. Even girls who are 

 active and fond of work are not attracted by the prospect of attaining, 

 after a period of rough and continuous labour as wives of labourers 

 or small cultivators, a better financial position than they could expect 

 in the towns, so much as by the comparative facility of keeping house 

 in a city. And the aversion felt by women for the conditions of life 

 and labour in the country is often the cause of the men's abandoning 

 agriculture. 



Among other means of checking the exodus from the country, Prof. 

 Auhagen says that one of the most effectual is the settling of peasants 

 on small holdings of their own. But in many places this is difiicult, either 

 because the price of land is too high, or because the peasants, once settled, 

 generally try to increase their holdings by purchasing or renting land so 

 as to form small independant estates. 



It is therefore better to form holdings to be let to peasants, but 

 whether there is a possibilit}^ of finding men to occupy these must depend on 

 the solution of the question of women's labour. The consequence of an excess- 

 ive occupation of women in farm work will be to drive away many men, 

 and it is therefore desirable that the work of women and children 

 should be confined to their own land. To enable the wife of a labourer to 

 take care of her house and her children as well as to work in the fields, the 

 latter should be as near as possible to the dwelling. It is generally easier 

 to find tenants who will pay a high rent for land thus situated than such 

 as will take distant farms at a lower rent. 



To retain or attract those peasant families, who, from want of means 

 or for other reasons, do not seek to possess farms of their own. Prof. Auhagen 

 recommends an increase in the number of houses to be let in the countr^^ 

 He also suggests that the work done by women for wages might be made 

 more acceptable through other forms of payment. This applies also to 

 temporary labourers, who deserve to be encouraged, when they are chiefly 

 the children and relatives of the labouring man. 



Home colonisation in the true sense, that is, the formation of villages 

 through the division of great estates, though not sufficient in itself to soh'e 

 the question of agricultural labour, may centainly have a favourable 

 influence in the future on the condition of labourers on large rural holdings 

 still undivided. 



In many places, for social and political reasons, a desire has been 

 expressed that restrictions should be placed on the work of young girls 

 in factories. A measure of this kind, the Professor points out, would 

 contribute to retain women for agriculture at an age when the future course 

 of their lives is often decided. 



