Page:Women Wanted.djvu/242

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WOMEN WANTED

"bears" the whole woman's wage market. She has hysterics: all the wise commercial world shakes its head about the staying power of woman in business. And the whole female of the species gets listed on the pay roll at two thirds man's pay.

The Orient Steamship Company, I believe, is giving equal pay for equal work. To an official of another steamship company complaining of the inefficiency of women employés, Sir Kenneth Anderson, President of the Orient Line, put the query, "How much do you pay them?" "Twenty-five shillings a week," was the answer. "Then you don't deserve to have efficient women," was the prompt retort. "We pay those who prove competent up to three pounds a week. And they're such a success we've decided we can't let them go after the war." But Sir Kenneth Anderson is the son of one of England's pioneer feminists, Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and the nephew of another, Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. And I suppose there isn't another business house in London that has the Orient Steamship Company's vision. Women clerks in London business circles generally are getting twenty shillings to thirty shillings a week. The city of Manchester, advertising for women clerks for the public health offices, offered salaries respectively of ten shillings, eighteen shillings and twenty shillings a week, "candidates to sit for examination."

Little peaches might not be worth more, it is true.