Foreign Domestics
It is,not to be expected that the scheme announced in Parliament last week for admitting foreign women (of any nationality but German) to domestic service in Britain and discussing their recruit- ment with foreign governments will have much effect on the average harassed housewife. From May 6th she will be granted a permit to employ a foreign worker if she knows of one, if she has insuffi- cient help, if she cannot obtain the services of a British woman, and if she pays the accepted rate. However, if only a few families benefit the arrangement is justified. More likely to benefit are th= hospitals which, indeed, are the Government's chief concern. This is as it should he, for hospitals affect the public generally and the hardship at present imposed on nurses through lack of domestic help is prejudicing girls against the profession. Moreover, hospitals have accommodation for domestics, and can offer agreed conditions in a way that private houses cannot. A suggestion made in Parlia- ment was that aliens should be employed as " home helps " by local authorities, but this presupposes that the authority has facilities for housing these girls, which is unlikely, and that there is no language difficulty. The other suggestion that they should be used in holiday resorts harks back to pre-war days when many a maid in a foreign hotel learnt English by working for a few months on the South Coast. The Minister of Labour did not rulelhis out, but said rightly- enough that hospitals must come first.
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