In the Times of Friday, July 22nd, there appeared a
letter from Lady Askwith on the subject of the present attempt by the Labour Exchanges to interfere in the relations between the employers and employed in domestic service. Their method is this. They issue "on Government paper a lit of requirements, hours, and wages, drawn up by the advisory committees, which, if the employers do not fulfil, they consider that the applicant is entitled to refuse the situation and receive the unemployment dole. They began with persona under eighteen years of age, but are in many instances extending them to cover all ape." As Lady Askwith points out, this is a grossly illegal attempt to blackmail domestic employers into conforming to what the Labour Exchanges think to be the right conditions. The demand for domestic labour so notoriously exceeds the supply that this interference is particularly futile. If a servant is dissatisfied with the conditions of his or her employment, he or she can so easily leave and obtain another situation at once, that the idea of it being necessary for the Labour Exchanges to protect, at enormous expense to the nation, the rights of this class, which can and very rightly does look after itself extremely well, is grotesque.
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