"OCCUPATION?"

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 2, 2 July 1929, Page 8

"OCCUPATION?"

GOING BACK

"THE GOOD OLD DAYS"

(Written for "The Post.")

Government official papers are at times a difficulty to the conscientious woman, those that require a detailed account of oneself particularly. They bear every mark of having been drawn up by a man, and when New Zealand sends women to Parliament in sufficient numbers to affect legislation, I should so like them to see that Government papers are bo plain and easy to understand that a mere woman can fill them up with ease, and still have dinner ready at the right time! My particular stumbling block has always been the line marked "occupation." There is no helpful marginal guide suggesting a choice of nouns acceptable to the Government. It invariably brings me up against the fact (women will know how true this is of themselves) that as a woman my occupations are many and various! If the Government wants a statement that sums them all up (one could put "Being a woman"), but in my own ease a truly truthful summing up would be the statement of my being "a jack of all trades and master of none"—and the government office it got to would gaze in wonder at so accurate a description of a woman's life. "Worth framing," it might even say! The last time I filled in this line of "occupation," I was in a hurry, and recklessly stuck down the first thing that came into my mind, which was "widow" —although I know quite well being a 'widow' was a state, not an occu pation It has not been returned to me for correction, so perhaps it got into the hands of an official who knev not that a state is not a proper synonym for an occupation. But "all accuracy is of the noble family of truth," and I will never again offend in this way, for I have now discovered the words that will reveal my real occupation to the State, and the next official papers I fill up will have on this occupation line "Early Settler"! Why didn't I think of it before? It certainly gives one a sensation of being very old, but there is "more to it" than that! THE OLD PIONEER SPIRIT. • "Once upon a time" (and not so long ago), I attended the opening ceremonies of a "Pioneer Park," and gazed upon rows and rows of early, settlers, and did not then note my being one of them myself. I listened to many speeches of appreciation of the men and women who arrived in New Zealand from 60 to 80 years ago, and by their efforts set the white man's mark on this country. One felt it would be a great honour to have been one of them. I wondered what the early settlers thought as they listened to the words which showed they had builded better than they thought or dreamt of in the days of log cabins, and sometimes little food, and no telephones, and no steamers. Had one said this to them they, might have answered: "No telephones and no Bteamers! We had no bricks for chimneys, no doctors when ill, and our fashions in hats and dresses only changed when our hats and dresses were wearable no longer, and some of us women only saw another woman once in a while, sometimes not for two or three years—but we stayed at home and were always busy and happy, and we seldom felt down-hearted, and rarely had a good cry save when the English mail reached us and we got homesick for England all at onee —but those were good old days, aud we doubt whether the young folk now are as happy as we were." Which brings me to the point of asking: Why, 1 if those were the good old days,.do we not, in planning for emigration from the Old Country, plan a colony of "early settlers"? Why do we not offer a tract of unbroken fertile country and say to England, "Colonise it as in olden days"? I have asked many people this question, and only received a vague answer that it cannot be done. Does this mean the old pioneer spirit, so lauded at the opening of that "Pioneer Park," is dead or feeble? Have we become a people who insist that liie does consist of "the abundance of the things we possess," and only in small m?<- a! U" ,o£ gcit and determination and self-denial and hope and straightness ? "EARLY SETTLER." Wo still have these last in the world but in pioneer work they seem a bit employed most, in Polar researches and aviation. Why let them only freeze at the ioles, tad be lost to view up in the ah-? Why not have once again true "early settler settlements, and watch their efforts with a sympathetic and helping hand? This idea will probably be regarded with a smile, and as "not practical politics," but if England had said thus and no early settlers had come here, New Zealand would now be a French-spoakinc Dominion! ** I confess that no speech on early days has ever suggested that we repeat them except 111 pageants, and perhaps I show only an early settler mind in thinking a' repetition possible and desirable. All the same, I shall put down "Early Settler as my occupation in the next official form I fill up, and if questioned shall with truth retort, "I am one! I live just now in an 8 s 10 dwelling, unlined, and with no chimney, with a wilderness to-be-subdued round me, and J never buy anything I can make or get for myself." There are worse honours than the honour" of trying to be an early settler!—GKACE