REPLY TO “COURTESY.”

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3442, 12 March 1932, Page 4

REPLY TO “COURTESY.”

(To the Editor). Sir, —It is a pity that your correspondent, “Courtesy,” has misled you into the supposition that the exchange stalls run by the W.D.F.U. in Pio Pio, are run for the benefit of that body. They were started all over New Zealand to enable country women, and town women too, to market their own produce for themselves on a co-opei-ative basis, as a means of augmenting the family budget during lean times. They are run by the W.D.F.U. certainly, but the labour is all voluntai-y, the only charge, I understand, being a small commission to cover expenses. As for there being an unwritten law in Pio Pio to avoid overlapping, the W.D.F.U. resolved to hold these stalls on every sale day to avoid the necessity of advertising each one individually. Of coui'se, it is quite easy to see wherein “Courtesy’s” grievance lies, but I am quite sure that the body on whose behalf he or she wrote, would on no account give the letter its endorsement. Insofar as the good works of the W.D.F.U. are concerned, they do as “Courtesy” supposes, keep their good works to themselves. I am in a position to vouch for this, having seen them at work in their own quiet way. Business and professional men in Te Kuiti will bear me out in this. It may be of interest to know that the W.D.F.U. is a body of 10,000 strong whose only paid official draws a salary of somewhere around £4 per week, all the balance of the income going to various charities. Can the body of which “Courtesy” is a member boast of any good deeds done in this district? If they can, they are very quiet about them, and it has been my experience that they as a body are not at all slow at self-aggrandisement. AS for the W.D.F.U. being only a spoke and not the hub of the district, I would venture* to remind “Courtesy” that the body of which he or she is- a member is not the hub either. And the W.D.F.U. has done a great service to country women, by bringing together in the bonds of friendship, women from all parts of the district who had formerly been strangers to each other, irrespective of creed or politics. Edward Noyes Westcott, in his famous book, “David Harum,” must have had someone like “Courtesy” in mind when he spoke of a certain sect who to quote his own words were called “the narrer Baptists because they’re so narrer in their views that fourteen of ’em c’n sit side by side in a buggy! In conclusion I may state that the W.D.F.U. has been a lesson to us, the men of the district, in co-operation and avoidance of “Courtesy’s" erroi’, small town politics.—l am, etc., MERE MAN.