MODES OF THE MOMENT

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 88, 7 January 1933, Page 7

MODES OF THE MOMENT

Passing Notes by Jane

Wellington. January 6.

Dear wasn- I t'it a miracle that, the holidays should wind up, down here with the loveliest dav imaginable? Both Christmas and New Year week-ends wore disappointingly "uncertain; but then came Tuesday, and Wellington, like the capricious vonng woman she is, took all her finery from the mystery box in wS she keeps it, and displayed for our delectation all the beauty and Cha Tbe t lired C °yachte l 'and speed-boats forth on to a seit of silvery tissue, crinkled ever so slightly by a breeze that filled curtseying sails, over whiW sea-birds hovered in'their flight. She unwound long gleaming ribbons that were roads for motorists, and outside the city, showed them huge old trees beside running water where lunch might be had in peace, and bush-dad hills from which she brushed the mist away, and deep cool glades. She sent us to a beach on the Eastbourne shore where we sat and looked out across the harbour, past Somes Island through the Heads, to' Seatoun on one far side, to Kaiwarra and the Hutt Road cliffs on the other. And tell you honestly there was no wind, and the sun shone steadily, and nowhere in the world could more loveliness have met the eye. . Children bathed in their delicious little sun-suits, grown-ups splashed and swam and shouted and were happy. To-morrow we would work again, but. for this Tuesday we had freedom, and a perfect day. Later on a sun-bathed verandah, surrounded by creepers and shrubs that framed a distant view of sea and hills, we talked over one of the burning problems of the moment. No maids. Why? Because no satisfactory maids ar ° One doesn’t say that there are no satisfactory maids. There must be some. But they, it is supposed, keep their places, and the. supply is limited. From the country up your way comes the same complaint. Ile nty of girls, but no experienced workers. None of the cooks can eook, none of the houseworkers know how to do housework; and the once good all-round "general has disappeared. . , . Unemployment lias no effect at. all on the situation, because unemployment affects for the most part shop and office clerks and attendants, and few of them have had either the opportunity or the inclination to learn the first rules of home-keeping. There can be no training equal to that a girl receives from her mother in a properly-run house; but boarding-schools and office-jobs have done away with that to a greater extent than is perhaps realised The proper care of pots and pans, the management of contradictory stoves, the making of jam and the sealing of jars—all tlie odds and ends of knowledge connected with the use of brooms and dusters, of polishing cloths, with the making of beds so that the blankets don t fall off in the night—all that sort of thing may be instinct in a woman, but only systematic training will bring it out. . . Yet if some sort of practical plan could be devised for training some of these unemployed girls—of any age—in the simple everyday rules of housework and cooking, there would bo places for all of them, I believe. As things are a fastidious housewife would rather do her own work than be bothered with experimental inefficiency. Perhaps it is too late to tackle so huge a problem in the present crisis. Bub why do parents encourage so many young girls to go into shops, where advancement is slow and uncertain, and the pay for some years far below the cost of living anywhere but at home, when domestic work is clamouring for them? The whole world is an open road to a really good cook, as it is to a New Zealand trained nurse. It is easy to save money, and the work nowadays, with electricity and hot water facilities, is nothing like as hard as it used to be. It seems to me, too, that there is a greater dignity in preserving the health and comfort of a household, than in standing behind a counter or a cash register at the beck and call of strangers. But perhaps I have the wrong point of view. Anyway, you look at it, it's a problem; though the’solution might be simple if we faced it honestly. Good luck to the grass-seed! With love, yours, JANE.