WOMEN ON THE LAND

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 96, 18 January 1938, Page 5

WOMEN ON THE LAND

New Zealander Finds Much That Is New Among Australian Countrywomen

(JOUNTRYWOMEN the world over have much in common, but the women of each land have something of practical value to offer which the other has not. Thus a country woman with sufficient inter est and initiative may bring home" helpful suggestions and new ideas from the country she has visited and at the same time leave more than the memory of her visit behind. Mrs. F. J. Carter, Eltham, who has returned after six months in Australia, actually spent the time at her disposal investigating conditions of women and children on the land, and told the people there something of what is being done to improve the life of the farmers wives here.

TN New South Wales Mrs. Carter found that women and children led a life different in many ways 1>» that of their New Zealand sisters. The Country Women’s Association of that State is the equivalent of the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union here, of which Mrs. Carter lias been a branch president for JI years, and like the W.D.F.U., the C.W.A. means much in the lives of its members. Mrs. Carter interested the association in the housekeepers’ scheme of the W.D.F.U., a plan as yet untried in Austra-

She found it was the C.W.A. which had to build, rent or maintain the rooms for the Baby Health Centres. The nurse for these centres is trained and supplied by the Health Department. Two other organisations doing similar work were the Tresillian and the Plunket —mostly Tresilliau. The CJV.A. also finances the Far Back Hospitals, a splendid work of growing importance for these centres, which are a great distance from the cities. Welfare Work. As an honorary child welfare officer and a justice of the peace, Mrs. Carter also made up her mind to learn all she could of child welfare work in New South Wales, and availed herself of every opportunity offered by the courteous officials of that department. They took to the children’s courts boys’ detention homes, girls’ industrial schools, orphanages, prisons, and boys' camps. She found that at the Children’s Court the police do not wear their uniforms. Everything is done with the idea of preventing fear of the law in the young children brought before the judge. Much is being done in Sydney for the welfare of the child. The pleasure parks and playgrounds, each with its qualified lady supervisor, were an important factor in encouraging the young body and mind to be healthy, according to Mrs. Carter. She said the children who were brought before the Children’s Courts were usually found to be mentally starved. They loved to be given books. In the slum areas libraries had been founded where children could lie on the floor with a book and a cushion. They became so absorbed nothing can interrupt them.

The Women Police Squad of Sydney consisted of a very fine type of woman. To see them on duty one would think they were out visiting, Mrs. Carter said. They did not .wear a uniform, but were dressed with charm and taste. The Citrus Question. For some years the W.D.F.U. has agitated for cheaper oranges. Not only does it consider them necessary for the sick, but for children and for the healthy. The Plunket Society advocates their use for babies. They are, indeed, a necessity for health, but at the price charged for them here oranges become a luxury, and the small wage-earner’s child is deprived of the necessity. ' With these thoughts in mind, Mrs. Carter visited the orchard districts in New South Wales. She found the citrus question a burning one there. At the C.W.A. meetings she addressed in these districts she was asked to endeavour to get the co-operation of the women in New Zealand to lift the tariff on oranges which has been imposed by the New Zealand Government. The orchardists assured Mrs. Carter that cases of oranges could be put on the rail for G/-, each case containing 150-200 oranges, with the freight at 3/9 per case. Mrs. Carter told them what oranges cost here, recollecting one case where they were auctioned at Dunedin at 37/6 a case. With the orchardists and inspectors provided by the Government, the Australians could not: see why New Zealand should have any cause to fear the exportation of diseased fruit. The C.W.A. thought it was time the women of both Dominions got together and did something about the matter in the common cause of human welfare. Mrs. Carter said she bought firstclass oranges and mandarins at 40 a shilling when they were being sold in New Zealand at 4d. and s<l. each. Mrs. Carter considered that even Island fruit was not imported into New Zealand in sufficient quantities to meet the demand of the consumer at a reasonable price. The Dairy-farmers.

Conditions for the worker on the land as compared with New Zealand spoke for themselves. Mrs. 1 Carter saw dairy-farming on quite a different level to the industry as she knows it. In New South Wales nearly all the milking she saw was done by hand, and many of the sheds which supply the cities were working up till midnight. Because of the dry conditions the animals’ food that was grown has to be distributed carefully—there was not the generous way of feeding in the paddocks as in New Zealand. Nearly every shed was fitted with food troughs in front of the bails, and the cows were fed while they were being milked. All the green feed was chaffed and put into a Pit or silo; this was mixed with straw or oaten chaff and grain. All this extra work had to be done by the milkers, who were paid very low wages. Mrs. Carter saw an advertisement for four adult hand milkers at £l6 a month. Boys’ wages were £1 and under a week, and the housing conditions for workers on the land were very poor. Many lived in shacks, and frequently in humpies made from bags and odds and ends. Unemployed New Zealanders. Unemployed New Zealanders were proving a problem in Sydney when Mrs. Carter was there, and the New Zealand Women’s Club found much to occupy it in their care. The Lady Mayoress of Sydney had spoken of the frequency with which she and her husband were appealed to by out-of-work New Zealanders, and Mrs. Carter said that it was pitiful to hear this when there was such a shortage of labour in their own land. Commenting on her Australian impressions generally, Mrs. Carter added

yet something to the picture of Australia as the visitor sees it. Whether it was the effect of the drvbright climate or not, Mrs. Carter could not say. but the people seemed bright and active, and their houses and buildings were painted gaily in comparison with 'New Zealand towns, which looked dull and drab in comparison on her return. One thing the Australians had. in common with us, however, was the fact that they were garden lovers. Even the slums and at the unemployment shack encampments (of which there were many) bright flower beds gave a cheerful appearance. Mrs. Carter was delighted to find sweet peas and poinsettias flowering in the middle of winter.

Trains, too, were bright. They were painted silver and blue, red and gold, yellow and grey. But Government buildings were dull, uncared for and gardenless. In direct contrast, private factories of all kinds had well laid out gardens, rockeries, lawns, many floodlit at nig'ht. Mrs. Carter said that nearly all the big firms sent prospective employees to their regular psychologist for a test, and on the psychologist’s report the decision was made.

Another contrast—Mrs. Carter did not like the dirty footpaths in Sydney. But it did seem strange to her to see so few children on the railway platforms or the streets or trams. The Australian girls gave Mrs. Carter a mixed but good impression. She said they were beautiful and charming, inclined to be very tall and Junoesque, and they certainly knew how to look after their hair. She saw very few women who did not have their hair beautifully waved. But the over-prevalent use of “powder and paint” reminded Mrs. Carter of a skit of some country people who went to Sydney to live. The mother took her small daughter, aged seven; to church one morning, and nothing she could do would stop the child from turning round and gazing at the congregation. “How long will it be, Mummy,” she whispered, “before we grow small red mouths?” “Queen Victoria’s monument in Sydney faces the Bankruptcy Court and her back is turned to the Church of St. James.” wits another of Mrs. Carter’s observances. She discovered that few baby cars were in use, and that plusfours were not popular on the golf links. —J.L.