WOMEN SETTLERS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 75, 26 September 1927, Page 12

WOMEN SETTLERS

FARM SCHOOL AT HOME

A LANCASHIRE SCHEME

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) : LONDON,. 30th July.' Further discussion has been takingplace in the columns of "The. Times" concerning .the, training of women for settlement overseas. A few days ago Hiss Bondfield wrote pointing out how important if was that the provision of facilities for -women and girls wishing to settle in the Empire overseas should keep pace with those offered to men. That there is in this country a training school for girls is pointed out in a letter from Lancashire. The writers mention that the scheme was recently inaugurated by the Lancashire County Council in their Farm School at. Hutton, near Preston, and is for the training of well-educated girls and'young women for life in one of.the Dominions. "The course," they say, "embraces traiDing in dairy.and poultry work as well as training in household duties. Residence is provided in the hostel, and the course extends over 12 months. The fees are £96 for residents outside Lancashire,' arid £48 for residents in the Lancashire:area. We should like to see grants made by the Overseas Settlement Department, to ■ suitable candidates to meet these charges, for tho scheme is one we can heartily commend from our personal knowledge of the site and the conditions under which the. scheme is worked." The Bishop of London also points out that the Church of England • Council o£ Empire Settlement has for sometime been planning in conjunction with the YJI.C.A. and other societies the formation of a school such as Miss Bondfield speaks of, whereby lads, young women, and young married families should get "some .instruction in .the essentials to make their path overseas the easier for them. ■ "Wo cannot do' this," the Bishop adds, "without more financial support than we are now getting. Financial support, which the Lord Mayor strongly recommended, should be given by all who have this matter at heart." \ ' ~ As a direct result of the correspondence an offer has been made by Dr. Barnado's Homes to place their organisation at the disposal of local bodies who contemplate ;training boys ,and girls, for settlement in Canada. Dr. Barnado's-Somes'have an organisation built up during' the last forty years for placing boys and,girls in Canadian homes and safeguarding their interests there. • ■ A further leading article on the subject of women settlers appears in-"The Times." It is evidently inspired by one who knows the real conditions overseas, and contains a good deal more common-sense ■ than is usually' found in articles-on the subject of migration: The writer points out that overseas, as at Home, it is the heavy work of the-household that women who can pay for it will gladly pay. others to do, and it 1 does not attract as a new life, in the way that land work in the Dominions attracts men and boys. There is; a natural com-mon-sense feeling against crossing the world to scrub floors. When it is added that a somewhat high standard of household efficiency is exacted by Dominion Governments, and that.-they seek..to attract, those whose prospects at .Home are brightest, it is not difficult to understand why greater advantage is not taken of free passages. Even if the careers for women looked on the face of them as promising as the careers for. men, parents would .still be more loth to let their 'daughters try; the adventure, and- there would still be that instinctive reluctance to start on a new life of which Mrs.; Noah —to" go 'back no farther than the Flood—is the traditional embodiment. "The truth is," the writer continues, "that the homely phrase 'household workers' denotes what is the beginning and not the end of the career overseas. Behind its drab suggestion lies a new.world offering almost boundless scope. It is, so to say, tho way for the assisted settler to matriculate into the life of the Dominions. It is the field in which she gives her proofs that she can make a sound contribution to the common life of her new country. We can understand what seems at times tho over-exacting attitude of Dp; minion" officials, when we remember that they are taking to their country the future mothers of their people. "That girls in the English towns should have the opportunity of testing their aptiture for the strenuous self-sumcjng ,coun--1 try life is only a little less obvious than that boys should have it. It is less acute in one way, because, they are unlucky ;ifthey cannot learn at home very much in I the way of cooking or laundry work, for I example, that will be invaluable if they i settle overseas, while their brothers can ' learn very little. But they cannot easily learn the things that separate the country household from tho town one, and town_ housewives gravitate naturally to towns." If the settlers to new countries "are to escape the ■ luvo of the town, the woman aa well as the man must be given every chance to get acclimatised, and to,develop the qualities which will make her enjoy n life often more lonely than that of her husband."