MILITARY APPEALS

Grey River Argus, 24 November 1942, Page 6

MILITARY APPEALS

(To the Editor)

Sir, —I have read with interest the letters in papers re the Appeal Boards. I trust that you will spare me the space to add my protest. Mav I ask the Appeal Board: Since when has cake-baking become an essential industry? Yet several cake bakers in this town have their appeals adjourned sine die. Since when has the grocery business been declared an essential industry (for a few) ? We read in appeal cases where statements are made that the work is too heavy for women. Yet we see a Cobden grocery business being run efficiently by two girls whose brother (the owner) is in camp. Are these two girls super-human or above the average standard of our girls? I will say “No.” May I enlighten the “grey heads” on the Appeal Board that women, in England are employed on farms, driving tractors, ploughing fields and harvesting crops. They are also engaged in the sawmilling industry, felling and logging trees, classing and tallying timber and a hundred and one other heavy jobs. To go futher, in Russia, they are actually engaged in building defences, and often not so far from the firing line. These are well known facts. Then, are our women weaklings in comparison to these women? I will say definitely, no. I would back our girls against those of any nation. Then what is wrong? The trouble is that, the “grey heads” listen to every “grandmother” story put forward and take it as gospel truth. Why? Some time ago, out of seventythree appeals, sixty-nine were adjourned sine die. In a recent ballot four hundred and thirty men were called for the West Coast, and the Army congratulated itself in receivinS forty recruits. Sir, I think it is high time that some of the young men stopped hiding behind their mother’s apron strings or their father’s banking accounts and came forward to help our boys who are fighting for them. I am, etc., MARRIED MAN NOT APPEALING.