WOMEN FARMERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 83, 8 April 1940, Page 8

WOMEN FARMERS.

NO DOMINION NEED. PUBLIC WORKS MEN FIRST. That there 5s no scope in New- Zealand at present for a- women's labour army to engage in farm work, was the view expressed by the Auckland District Council of Primary Production in conference to-day. It was stated that many women were willing to undertake farm work, but the positions available were chiefly confined to farmers' homes. "Conditions in New Zealand are entirely different from those in England," said Colonel N". P. Adams, of Clevedon, a member of the council. "The women's land army in England is meeting a national need, but the time is not yet ripe for such an organisation here." The Hon. F. E. Lark, secretary of the Xew Zealand Workers' Union, said that to-day men were being put off public works and it was not easy to find other work for them. They would seize upon openings on the farms if given decent homes and decent conditions. The conditions under which eharemilkers were working were not entirely creditable to the farming industry. There was no justificacion for the statement, frequentlv made, that the hours of farm work were keeping men from going on the farms. 'The bogy of a five-day week has nothing to do with it" he declared. I The meeting adopted a resolution that there were sufficient men in Xew Zealand at present to do all the heavy work requiring to be done.