Yet in the present crowded state of the English market for educated women's work, it is just the middle and upper class girls who have most difficulty in finding openings at home.

In my opinion this cry that ' Ladies are not wanted " is a mistake. A really clever, energetic, adaptable girl, even though a ' lady," has more chance of earning a good living in a colony than she has of earning a meagre living in England.

But she must be trained for colonial life, which means she must have an expert knowledge of every kind of domestic work. Governesses are not wanted in any colony, nor are lady bookbinders, jewellery-makeis, artists, indexers, or other professions which arise only in a country full of the leisured rich. Secretaries, bookkeepers, kindergarten and music-teachers, and so on, cannot be certain of success over-sea any more than they can at home.

But the girl who can cook and sew, who understands laundry work, the care of poultry, something of the management of children, and the care of a house, may emigrate to any colony she chooses, secure of finding a dozen people ready to compete for her services when she lands. She will get at least as good a salary as any lady-servant, companion, or housekeeper in England, and is certain to meet with opportunities that she can never hope for here. What we should call a lady-help is called there a " home-help," and will receive a salary commencing at £25 to £40 a year.

Our emigrant will have to work hard, no doubt, but she will work with the family, as one of the family, on a perfect social equality with them, and be treated with Car more consideration and friendliness than most highly certificated governesses receive in England. She will share in all the amuse-ments that are arranged, and need never tear to be out of a situation for a daw for every colonial agrees that the Colonies are crying out for women who can do old-fashioned women's work really well.

Even if the emigrant does plain domestic work (and it should be remembered that in all colonial cities the houses and flats are fitted with labour-saving appliances, gas-cooker perpetual hot-water supply, cential-heating furnaces, which save much of the drudgery servants still have to put up with in England), her lot will be a happier one than that of halt the- gently-bred working women in England - nursery governesses, c

companions, shorthand typists, etc. I don't mean the few girls who have exceptional talent and achieve outstanding success, but that large majority who earn from £20 a year with board, and from £1 a week without it; who lead cramped, monotonous lives, have little chance of marrying happily, and no chance at all of saving sufficient to keep them when they grow too old to work.

In a colony, such a girl may or may not have more chance of marrying - I fancy that in the cities there is a fairly adequate supply of charming colonial girls, and that the young men whom we hear of as having such a difficulty in finding wives are usually those who live on remote farms to which colonial girls absolutely decline to follow them, because the loneliness and the hardships are so great. But though she may not marry, she certainly will meet many opportunities for improving her position which she would never have found at home.

For instance, one girl in a Canadian city supports herself and her invalid mother by going out as a daily cook. In a country where maids are scarce and often untrained, where a single good woman servant is as much a luxury as a butler is in England, and where a college professor's wife will think nothing of doing all the work of her flat, and giving weekly dinner parties, at which she officiates as cook and parlourmaid as well as hostess, it is obvious that a girl who will come and cook this dinner admirably well - for colonials, as a rule, cook far better than ordinary English people - is in great request, and able to command very different remuneration from what she could expect over here.

Another girl is a first-rate dressmaker; she also goes out to work at the house, and charges £1 a day. The usual rate is about 6s,, but this girl commands more because she devotes herself to cutting out, fitting, draping, and to showing her employer how to make up the garments she prepares. The employer does a good deal of sewing herself, and has in a coujle of women to help, and between the four of them they will start several elaborate garments. Later in the week the lady dressmaker comes for another day to see the final fitting and put the finishing touches.

The healthy, open-air loving girls of Canada are generally good riders. Many of them have abandoned the side saddle and ride astride Copyright. Canadian Pacific Kailway

1 do not suggest that there are large numbers of women doing precisely this particular kind of work in the Colonies, but quote them as instances of what can be done by a girl with initiative and adaptability, and one who is really expert in some branch of domestic work. Another girl - but she was Canadian-born - took a secretaryship at £100 a year, with no prospect of a rise. However, the concern expanded with the expansion of the country; she worked it up, gave complete satisfaction, and now receives £220 a year. This is the sort of thing which can happen in a new country far more easily than it can, even to the ablest worker, in crowded England.

Many girls, too. possess a few hundred pounds capital, which they would have far more opportunity of investing well in a colony than here. One, with less than three hundred pounds, started a boarding-house, which d eveloped into a really big concern, paying cent, per cent, on the original capital; another, in Australia, runs a big fruit farm. Three hundred pounds capital is what the Australian authorities quote as necessary for a. working farmer, but £100 would start a poultry farm, and these and all other businesses may be carried on without any loss of social standing, such as is the bugbear of " gentlewomen ' in trade over here.

But before touching her capital, a woman should spend a year or two in the colony in some paid situation. learning the ropes, the local requirements. To go out from England and start a business, no matter of what kind, on the advice of some interested agent or over-sanguine friend, before one knows" one's way about, is fatal, yet it is a mistake constantly made. English people would not dream of setting up for themselves in Paris before serving an apprenticeship there, but they will buy land in Canada or Australia in full confidence of immediate success. Their capital, too. frequently melts away in paying for mistakes which could have been avoided had they known a little more of the country.

A model farn-house in Western Canada Copyright Canadian Emigration Office

Unfortunately, domestic work is so ill paid in England, and still considered so beneath one by many people, that the average mother who knows her daughter must earn her living has her trained for a profession. In many parts of England it is not even easy to get good domestic instruction. The classes held are merely demonstrations at which the theory is learned, but not the dexterity born of practice. It is one thing to know the best way to peel a potato, bone a chicken, or iron a blouse, and quite another to be able to do it as easily and well as a colonial woman, who has been at such work since she could walk.

One sensible English mother got over this difficulty by sending her girls to good classes, and then dismissing her maids and letting them do the whole work of the house for three months before they emigrated.

Much the same plan is pursued at Arlesey House, near Hitchin,* where students are trained for colonial life, and to take up small holdings. There, only one maid is kept, and the students divide the work amongst them just as the daughters of the house used to do in nearly every home in England, taking it week about to be cook, housemaid, laundress, pig and poultry woman, etc. The training at Arlesey costs £50 lor a six months' course, which of course includes residence, or £80 for the year. The full two years' course, for which a certificate is given, equips a girl to farm her own land if she wishes, and Miss Turner, the head, is in touch with all the colonies, and has always openings waiting for her students. But when one considers the number of girls who might and should emigrate, Arlesey, with its comparatively few students, and the two or three other colonial training colleges, seem but drops in the ocean of our educational requirements.

I hope that in a short time the many women's clubs in the Colonies, at any rate in Canada, may be induced to take up this question of the educated girl-emigrant.

At present it requires a good deal of courage and a considerable amount of money for an English girl who has no introductions to go out alone.

The various Governments will not help her; in fact, they do their very utmost to discourage the emigrant above the labouring class, and an interview with the officials at the various emigration offices leaves the impression that there is far less room in the Colonies for middle-class girls than there is at home. On the other hand, the raiway and steamship companies incline to rather too rosy a view, though a little booklet, called " Canada for Women," issued by the Canadian Pacific Railway, to be obtained at the company's offices, 67, King William Street, or 62-65, Charing Cross, contains much useful information. Individual colonials, however, are often extraordinarily kind, and an introduction from an English or Scottish clergyman to one in a colony is of far more assistance than it would be over here.

At the London offices of the various colonies the best local newspapers can be seen (most of these also have London offices), and if copies of the papers are obtained and carefully studied, they will give one a much better idea of the colony than most travel books. Advertising in these papers is not expensive, and a girl can often get a situation in this way.

The following are representative papers which have London offices:

Australia: "Melbourne Age," 160, Fleet Street. E.c.; " Sydney Daily Telegraph," 160, Fleet Street, E.c.; Australasian," 80, Fleet Street, E.c.; " Brisbane Daily Mail," 265, Strand, W.c.

New Zealand: "New Zealand Times.". 134, Fleet Street, E.c: ' Canterbury Times," 134, Fleet Street, E.c.

Canada: " Manitoba Free Press." Bridge Row, Cannon Street, E.c Montreal

Star," 17 and 19, Cockspur Street, S.w.; "Toronto Globe," 222, Strand, W.c; " Winnipeg Tribune." 30. Fleet Street, E.c.

South Africa: " Cape Times," 14, St. Mary Axe, E.c.; " Transvaal Weekly News," 14, St. Mary Axe, E.c; Times of Natal," 16, Devonshire Square, E.c

* An exhaustive article on this institution will appear in another issue of Every Woman's Encyclopedia.