THE WOMEN OF THE WEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 96, 24 April 1922, Page 4

THE WOMEN OF THE WEST.

The conference in Sydney of women from the country to consider means of bettering the lot of women and children in the "out-back" districts will recall to everyone who has ever read it one of the best-known and most impressive of Australian poems, George Essex Evans' "The Women of the West." In essence Evans' lines are applicable to women's pioneering life in all countries—the toil, the hardship and the solitude. In the back-blocks of Australia, however, these foes press often with exceptional severity. We leave it to Canadians and Australians to settle the question whether a woman's lot is harder on the plains of Canada than on the frontier line of settlement in Australia. It can be' said confidently that severe as have been and are the hardships of New Zealand's pioneers, circumstances are kinder to them than to their Australian cousins. The lot of the woman "out back" is a matter to which the townsman's attention should frequently be directed. They are the finest heroines of a young nation, these women who face life in a shanty, who work hard all day and every day with a minimum of convenience, who are many miles from a doctor, who have no amusements, and who may see their children growing up without education.

For them no trumpet sounds the call, no poet piles his arts — They only hear the beating of their gallant living hearts. But they have sung: with silent lives the songs all songs above — The holiness of sacrifice, the dignity of love.

However; the spirit of organisation *is everywhere in the air in these times, and there is no Teason. why the women of the country districts should not combine for their own benefit. The Sydney conference adopted resolutions relating to better and cheaper means of communication, better educational facilities and more conveniences and amusements. Resolutions, however, will do nothing without action, and it is to be hoped that something practical will be done. By co-operation and with the assistance of the towns, much could surely be done to make back-blocks life easier and safer. A good deal of the hardship that is suffered persists because intelligent cooperation has not been brought to bear upon the matter. It is a national, and indeed a world-wide problem. The drift to the towns, which is a common state of affairs, is partly the result of rural conditions. Australia, with her swollen cities, could with profit apply some of her energies to making country life more attractive.