WOMEN & CHILDREN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 27, 31 July 1941, Page 11

WOMEN & CHILDREN

FEDERATION OF SOCIETIES

The conference of- the Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin Societies for the Protection of Women and Children decided yesterday to form a federation for the purpose of greater co-operation and more effective action, though each society is to retain its own independence and identity.

Important questions dealing with legislation for the benefit of women and children were dealt with, and the conference is to send a deputation to meet Ministers of the Crown tomorrow.

It was decided to make a strong protest to the Labour Department about the long hours worked by young girls of 14 and 15 years tending heavy power looms in the clothing factories. This work, it was contended, is too strenuous for their years and must have serious results in the future.

It was agreed to draw the attention of the Minister of Education to what was considered the necessity for! regulations under the Child Welfare Act to govern and control the employment of children in street trading, including the sale of confectionery and ices in theatres and the delivery and sale of newspapers. The conference considered the time had arrived when women justices of the peace should be appointed to serve on the Bench with the presiding Magistrates when cases in which husbands and wives, girls and children, come before the courts, and that such appointments be for three years. B Another remit which the conference supported was that the Government be asked to increase the allowance for dependants of men in the armed forces by 25' per cent. It was stated that the allowance of 3s a day for a wife is the same as it was in the last war, and it | was argued that the increased cost of I living made an increased rate of al- | lowance imperative.

The conference asked that the full allowance of Is 6d a day for the support of soldiers' dependent children be paid for both legitimate and illegitimate. Cases had occurred in which only 6d a day was being paid for an illegitimate child and considerable hardship resulted.

In his statement in the House on Tuesday night the Minister of Defence stated that he had been advised that Able Seaman B. E. Bird, of Wellington, who went with the fifth batch for naval training, had received top marks in the examination for gunnery and seamanship, obtaining 95 per cent, for gunnery and 96 per cent, for seamanship. Mr. Bird is an old Nelson College boy, and a grandson of Mr. E. A. Israel, formerly of the Post and Telegraph Department.