The Colonial Secretary as a speaker is never dull. The annual meeting of the United British Women's Emigration Association, which was by his presence turned into quite a considerable function, found him both amusing and instructive.
From him we learnt that in the United there are just about one representatives of the weaker than of the sterner sex—with what natural result? These women are, by the necessity of the case, debarred from the fulness of life which is their duc. They cannot look forward to becoming wives and mothers and are jostling on-another in the struggle for existence so that the wages of women are greatly reduced and sometimes entirely inadequate." In other countries, said Mr. Chamberlain with a smile, this disproportion is entirely reversed, therefore it is desirable to send some of our women there; notably South Africa, where as soon as the war is over tens of thousands of men will be going out, who will in a short time want wives to'help them to make howes and settle on the land. The question of Low to send them in safety is " dificult one, a3 women cannot travel for thousands' of miles with no home in view in the same way that men can; it is hoped that by the enlargement of this sociation and forming agencies in the various large towns the solution of the problem may be found. But it seems to me that the type of woman ble for this pioneer work is just that of which we are short at home—of lady clerks, typists, shop assistants and women of no occupation we have thousands to spare, as is shown by the numbers who answer newspaper advertisements, but of domestic servants, laundry hands, and women of kindred trades there is terrible scarcity, and these are just the women who would be useful in a' new country, The Colonial Secretary said that in his official capacity he could hold out no hopes of the Government sending out emigrant ships for either sex, but ina short time he hoped they might be sending out transports to bring home some of the troops ad it was possible that in them what was known as indulgence passages might be urented to suitable women select=d by this associ tion; he also thought that the new colonies, reevgnising the extreme importance of the work, might themselves offer pecuniary aid it seems ay though some of our odd" women (to use Mr. Gissing's quaint term the superfluous million) are to be pxovided for.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.