AMONG OURSELVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 65, 19 March 1926, Page 13

AMONG OURSELVES.

A WEEKLY BUDGET.

(By CONSTANCE CLYDE.)

WOMEN " COMMERCIALS."

In January last, the Commercial Travellers' Association met in Belfast, and distinguished themselves by postponing for another twelvemonth, consideration of a demand that women should be admitted as members. The majority against) however, was not very large, so that probably tfae argument that "-oTomen worked for salaries that would not keep a man in cigarettes," etc., were not taken _ seriously, or elstf, maybe, as a reflection on masculine nicotine habits. That ■'eomniereia.l travelling" was a man's jol) was also put forward in spite of the many successful women "drummers" in America, where they seem to have no special difficulties. Mrs. Hoster, of tile London Chamber of Commerce, reading the evidence, remarked to a Press representative that such persons should go "back to Methusaleh." As the "Woman's Leader' points out. however, those dava were probably not as antifeminist as now. otherwise no female creature would have been permitted in the Ark. One can imagine then being told that tlieir place was the home, even though tlie floods were rising against that home, as do the financial floods of distress to-day.

"In any case," that paper conclude? very sensibly, "we have yet to learn that a class of workers can obtain adequate protection of their standard of living by excluding from, their vocational organisations the persons by whom that standard is threatened. Even the Trades Union Congress -knows better than that." , SOME INTERESTING VICTORIES. In connection with tin's vexed question of women in business life, it is said that Miss Hilda Lang.- eldest daughter of the Premier of Xew South. Wales, was not only one of the first batch, of women J.P.s, but also a very good business woman. At fourteen she went to her father's estate office, being to-day manager, with full charge of everything, a type of position not held by any other woman in the State, it is alleged. In England, the new pastor of the Littleover Baptist Church, in Derbyshire, is lliss Violet Hedger, B.D. Miss Hedger is not the first woman in this ministry, but she is the first to 'complete the regular course at a Baptist theological college.along with men. Only 25 years of age, Miss Hedger has already achieved a reputation as a good preacher. Shakespeare is responsible for the success of Miss May Yardley who has been in residence at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, since 1925. She has just been elected tG the Charles Oldham Scholarship of Oxford University as a result of an j examination in knowledge of the great dramatist. This is the first occasion where a woman has held an "Oxford Scholarship.

THE HOME MAKER. Family endowment, of course, concerns the State, but other reformers are concentrating upon the idea of the husband as employer, and hie occasional deficiencies in this respect. Miss Doris Stevens in "That Nation" attacks the problem from this point of view, but states emphatically that "wages for wives" is a. misnomer. The alliteration is attractive, but the expression is not to the point, for no wages can or should pay a woman for the care and affection that she expends on her family. Again, though she is often glorified as seamstress, cook, cashier, porter, and charwoman etc., all in one ife must be remembered that her vbork in these directions is often of amateur not professional standard and, even in theory, she could hot expect what ethers feeeive outside. Miss i?tpvens' idea is that the married couple from the start should form a joint stock company, the terms to bo drawn up by a solicitor, but subject to revision at future times. Her views are, that under present conditions, the wife and mother often bores as much through self-denial as she would through undue extravagance, and that such, a business scheme would really serve better the ends of romance than our preent haphazard ways. It might certainly indeed make it seem absurd instead of beautiful for a girl to marry a man who refuses to tell hr Iris income, and considers that by her curiosity she does not "trust" him. Such cases are still not unknown, and by debating ideas such a. sthose of Miss Stevens, however impracticable they seem, the peaple are educated to common sense and true camaraderie. THE HOME IN 1925. In a review of the last year, an English writer asks pertinently: "We hear of what the previous twelvemonth has done for the drama, the school, the commercial woman, the industrial woman and so forth. What has it done for the home? Tα the separated wife, the widow, the wife at odds with destiny and so forth? What did the departed year bring, and what hope is there from the next? The family endowment idea has certainly made progress in the Press and on the platform. It has become part and parcel of economic studies. It was discuesed on many serious occasions, as for instance in the Coal Commission. But as yet there is no practical application. The mother and her children remain, as heretofore, in the category of private luxuries, upon which a man, at his own discretion, expends the whole, or part of. his surplus income. When we turn to the home maker as bnyer of commodities, we find that 1925 brought ups and downs . We must (we should remember) regard the pro/lucer as primarily masculine andthe consumer as primarily feminine. Therefore when food is made cheap or dear it is really a feminist matter. When the latter occurs, the game may be worth the candle —itis no part of our duty to embark on fiscal policy —but it may be as well to remember that it is the homemaker's that is being burnt. However, there is no doubt that the year 1926 will see great thought focussed on thi-3 problem, which is all to the. good."