Married Men's Relief Camps.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20920, 29 July 1933, Page 10

Married Men's Relief Camps.

I The conference of the Federation of Women's Institutes showed little hesitation in rejecting a remit from one of the institutes recommending the Unemployment Board not to separate married men on relief work from their wives and homes unless the men were willing to go into camp. Several speakers made quite clear the general feeling of the conference that were the necessity to arise they would be ready to segregate themselves from the breadwinner; there was, indeed, from a masculine point of view a note of uncomplimentary alacrity of agreement on the point, which suggested that any agitation against the camps might not be a women's movement. But to treat the question with the seriousness that it deserves, it is worth repeating and emphasising that if the women are willing to make the sacrifice (and it is only adding another to those that they daily make in their unselfish devotion) the men should as cheerfully accept a position which is as unfortunate as it is inevitable. It may be said that none of the delegates is likely to be among those personally affected, and that therefore their interest in the sacrifice is purely abstract. But, as one of the speakers indicated, New Zealand women have already shown their capacity for sacrifice in the Great War; and there is no reason to assume that if- callsd upon to make another in the interests* of their country and their children they would be found wanting. It is therefore not too much to believe that this representative gathering of women as truly recorded the opinion of their sisters who are in distress as if those unfortunates had passed the resolution themselves.