WOMAN’S CASE AGAINST POOR FOOTWEAR AND LACK OF BABY WOOL

Evening Star, Issue 26154, 16 July 1947, Page 6

WOMAN’S CASE AGAINST POOR FOOTWEAR AND LACK OF BABY WOOL

(Special.) WELLINGTON, July 16

“ For some reason or other we are losing the pride of workmanship in this country. We should be turning out a good article at a good price. We should be proud of the stuff we are turning out in our factories,” said? Mrs H. Ross (Nat., Hamilton) in the House of Representatives yesterday. Mrs Ross illustrated her remarks in a graphic manner by waving aloft shoes which she claimed were of shoddy and which had " cracked up ” in surprisingly little time. “ I think the most important people in New Zealand are the mothers of the country,” she said, “ and 1 would like to outline. a few of their difficulties.” The best new citizens of New Zealand, said Mrs Ross, were its babies. The mothers of the _ country were not being given sufficient encouragement to increase the population. After referring to the difficulty experienced by expectant, mothers- in obtaining admission to maternity homes, Airs-Ross said that during the last few years private maternity homes had been closing with great regularity and had been continuing to do so. The reluctance of the Stabilisation Commission to allow the charges of those, hospitals to be increased, combined with a lack of staff and increased costs, had resulted in many of them being turned into boarding and apartment houses. YOUNG MOTHER’S DIFFICULTIES. Mrs Ross devoted a considerable portion 'of her speech to the difficulties encountered by the young mother in obtaining suitable clothing for , a young baby. It was a remarkable tiling, she said, that in Australia there was apparently an unlimited quantity of baby wool available. The best’ English wool was obtainable there at 9d a skein and ill unlimited quantities. Surely it would not be too much to ask that, perhaps the Minister of Supply would see his way to letting us have some of this white wool in New Zealand.” The'Minister of Supply (Mr A. H. Nordmeyer): The Minister of Supply is not stopping any more coming here. The fact remained, said Mrs Ross that it could not be obtained here and it could be got' in Australia to-day. The population had increased considerably, but production of footwear had not kept pace. To-day, as never before, there was on the mraket a very inferior and poor type of shoe, and one of the leading doctors of the country had warned that the footwear being put' on''the young' people was piling up foot trouble for them in the future. Mrs Ross waved in the air one of a pair of children’s shoes very much the worse;.for ''wear,'which, she said, had been worn for four weeks and was typical of the footwear at present being sold.