MISS MAY HOLMAN M.L.A.

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 24, 28 July 1927, Page 15

MISS MAY HOLMAN M.L.A.

TIMBER-WORKERS' MEMBER

A pleasant girl, with ready smile and nice grey eyes—such is a first impression of Miss Holman, the only Labour woman member in Australia, and once for two months or so, the only woman Parliamentarian in the Commonwealth (says the "Adelaide Observer"). She came into politics at the invitation of her father's union at his death—"and they had to do more than ask—tiiey had to beg," she says clearly. Once there, however, she takes politics at once seriously and with an easy naturalness. On the lighter side of them she gave me a few running commentaries. "My fellow-members are often asked as they go round the country, 'How do you treat Miss Holman V They answer, 'Just as a fellow-member.' The nest question is usually, ' What do you call her?' Well, those who have known me a long time call me May. Some of them call mo Sister. And last year, when my Bill was before them, they got so tired of my pestering them that I was frequently -.ailed 'Bill.' "

Out of session most of Miss Holmau 's time is taken up in travelling in the timber country, and few men have a better knowledge of it. She showed some good snapshots of the country and the dwellings of the people who vote for her, again proving her real and vivid knowledge of those <vhom she represented. Miss Holman spoke of the educational difficulties of tho back-blocks, and the means taken to overcome them, and the writer continues:—

The women among the timber workers are beginning, Miss Holinan said, to take a keener interest in politics. "They are great workers for charity,'? she said. "Just before I left the west I was able to go down to- the Old Ladies' Home and present them, from my women's branches, with a player piano, a hundred records, wicker chairs, and rugs. When there is a hospital appeal, my women are the first to respond. They give dances for caarities, and run stalls of work." As we came down the steps of her hotel,-Miss Holman's ear detected, among all the city noises, the familiar sound of a sawmill. She smiled as one who feard the voice of a friend. "When I near a siren iiT the bush," she said, "I always see visions. I imagine—I used to write fairy tales when I was a child—that the old dragon of a sawmill is roaring for food, and that men must spring from their beds every morning to feed him with logs lest he should devour them."