SHOPPING.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18682, 4 May 1926, Page 2

SHOPPING.

EMPIRE WEEK. , WOMEN'S PATRIOTIC LEAGUE. CTBOM OCR OWN COSKBSrOKDIST.) LONDON, March 18. May 24th, Empire Day, falls this vear on another English festival and Bank Holiday, Whit Monday. The week before Whit Monday it is considered that people save their money for a week-end trip, and during the following week they have no money to spend. Those who are organising Empire Shopping Week are considering, therefore, whether it would not be wiser this year to select another week than that in which Empire Day occurs for the usual effort on behalf of British produce. This year it is hoped that all the Dominions will fall into line in the Empire festival. Lady Cowan, chairwoman of the British Women's Patriotic League, has been over to Canada for three months interesting that Dominion in the scheme. It was this League which inaugurated the week in 1922. From the League's point of view it is an educational scheme to demonstrate, by window-dressing, the vast resources of the Empire, in order to prove to the public what an enormous number of quite common articles are of British origin and how self-sup-porting we might be. The League disclaims any idea of forcing British wares upon the customer, for, being strictly non-party, it is impossible to enter upon controversies regarding the problems of Tariff Reform and Free Trade.

The Empire Shopping Week scheme, of course, lias been taken up by other organisations like the Women's Branch of the Conservative Association, by the British Empire Organisation, and by the Board of Trade itself, but the credit of its establishment is due to the British Women's Patriotic League. New Zealand in Line. Lady Cowan is anxious that New Zealand should come into line with .Great Britain. Speaking on this subject to me, she said: ,- We have got Australia to take it up, and now we have got it taken up in Canada, where I liave spent three months. The women's organisations in Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Toronto have got the matter in hand. We have made a start in South Africa, too.

"What we want to do is to make it a Festival of Empire, linking up all the Dominions, so that during a certain week we are all doing tjie same thing and thinking the same thoughts. It is the sentiment of Empire that we want to conserve. When this movement was started on© firm selling Dominion goods tells me there was not a single application from customers for specifically British goods. Now more than 40.per cent, of the customers of those stores give instructions that nothing but Empire goods should be sent to them. "I understand," said Lady Cowan, "that. New Zealand has been having her British shopping months, and people have been urged to buy British goods. T know that no country is more loyal than New Zealand. But we want to know definitely that the Dominion is supporting us in our movement, that the whole, of the Dominions are . making this Shopping Week a manifestation of the Empire spirit. We want to know that New Zealand Is in line with the rest "

GIRLS FOR NEW ZEALAND. SEAMEN'S DAUGHTERS. riXOV OUB OWH COIUUS3PONDEKT:) LONDON, March 23. By the Jom'c, which sails on Friday, there will be 390 nominated or assisted passengers. Included in the number will be 38 domestic servants, and the first party of twelve girls going out under the sheepowners' scheme. Miss Dale will be matron in charge of t'ie domestic party and : of the seamen's girls. The twelve girls going out to the Awatuna home are for the most part the daughters of disabled seamen, and ten of them have brothers in New Zealand Who have passed through >'!ock House, or are at present stationed there. Their average age is 16} years. Two come from Edinburgh, one from Ayr, and one from Glasgow. Two come from Lowestoft, two from South Shields, and one each from Arlesford 'Hampshire), Liverpool, Grimsby, and Jarrow.

At Awatuna the girls will ba trained in the lighter branches of farm work r.nd in household duties, and then tr.ey »vill be apprenticed to farmers' wives [ for a period of three .years. As far as possible, those girls having brothers already in the Dominion will be apprenticed on the same farm as their brothers, but where this is not eo\ivenient, they will be plared on farms as near tq their brothers as possible. SOLDIERS' DANCE. The first extended night in connexion with the present season of the weekend socials conducted under the auspices of the Returned Soldiers' Association was held on Saturday night, and was a brilliant success. Jellicoe Hall has rarely presented a gayer scene, and the 90 couples that took part in dancing spent a most enjoyable time. In addition to the pleasing decorations there were special spotlight effects and streamers which greatly contributed to the evening's gaiety. A special musical programme was given by Willyams's Grand Band, and was much appreciated An excellent sit-down supper was served under the supervision of the Ladies' Committee, consisting of Mesdames H. Fleck, J. S. Kelly, and B. Bean. The general arrangements were under the control of the Dance Committee, comprising Messrs G. W. Lloyd, H. Fleck, G. Haydon, G. Hoffman, and S. A. Thomas. Two hundred people, chiefly miners, were summoned at Newport County Police Court on January* 28th for nonpayment of income-tax. One miner, assessed as a single man, said he had 12 children. A steelworker owed £4O.

MIDDLE CLASS. MOST DOWN-TRODDEN PEOPLE. (ITIOM OUft OWV COBSrsPOXDENT.) LONDON, March IS. A plea for the Middle Class, described by Dean Inge as the "most downtrodden class in the country," was wade by Miss Irene Vanbrugh, the Dean, and others at a luncheon held iu the hall of the Merchant Taylors Company, in aid of the Girls' Realm Guild. This Guild, which was formed in 1901, has as its' primary object the helping and educating of middle-class girls who would otherwise be unable to enjoy such advantages as their parents would have given them had not death or misfortune intervened. Miss Irene Vanbrugh, in her appeal for the fund, said that the Guild was the only Association which helped girls not belonging to the very poor classes, but to that class which never did and never could beg for themselves, and to whom education, good-fellowship, and heip meant everything. Mr 11. Mitchell Banks, K.V., M.P., said that often they were called upon to support useless and sickly lives, although in their inmost heart they must hajve felt the uselessness of such charity In the Guild, however, they were not helping to propagate weeds or sickly plants, but helping to give light and nourishment to promising shoots which would in time bear good fruit. Suffering in Silence. | The girls they sought to help came from the best stock in the ccviDtry—the middle class—which had never been well off, and which was. now sadly impoverished and suffering in silence privations which- would evoke a great'clamour from any other stratum of societv.' In many cases they struggled on. with a mere pittance which would be despised by a scavenger, and proudly preferred service to emoluments. In the Hous« of Commons they were voting millions every sesjion for giving the working classes new* ideas,' but it would l>c considered a legislative phenomenon if they were asked to voto sixpence, for the old traditions and for the class which above all needed ingDean Inge referred to the excellence of the work, which was to help the most, clown-trodden class in the country —a class ground between profiteers on the one hand and the working man on the other, subject to exorbitant taxation, but never grumbling, never strik- -!"£• ." l cannot," he concluded, imagine a kinder charity."