LOVER OF HOUSEWORK.

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6650, 2 July 1928, Page 8

LOVER OF HOUSEWORK.

POLITICIAN’S HELPFUL WIFE. MRS. J. T. LANG’S ACTIVITIES, What woman would .do her own housework, washing and ironing, if her husband were to receive £4O a week in salary for rtwo years, or even £l7 a week permanently? Yet Mrs. J. T. Lang, wife of the Leader of the Oppsition in the Legislative Assembly of New; South Wales, does, and,even dur-, ing the two and a half years her husband was Premier of the State she was at the washtub at seven o’clock every Monday morning. Mrs. Lang is Australian born,, and she does housework simply because she loves doing it. “I hate being idle, and I love my housework and my garden,” she declared. In addition she cooks for the Lang menage, and as many Auburn people and most Labour politicians can certify she knows quite ,a lot about, cooking. A kindly-faced, short, motherly-look-ing woman, with bobbed hair, Mrs. Lang believes. that the main job- of a* woman is rearing a family and bringing it up'her'self, says a recent writer; “It is done properly, or at least to our satisfaction then, ’ ’ she says. When she is not doing housework, attending to her garden or organising for St. Joseph’s Hospital at Auburn, Mrs. Lang is quietly doing good among those’in distress in the district, She has helped scores of poor families in the district, and evbn the most bitter political enemies of her husband pay tribute to the generosity of his wife. Her garden is a thing of beauty, and up till last ■ year, When her two daughters were' married, no one was allowed to touch ;it except herself. Now, however, the job is usually done under her direction, as she has less time.. ; Housework suffers at election time, for Mrs. Lang does the work of half a dozen canvassers. Last election more than one irate. Nationalist whom she endeavoured to convert ordered her off the premises. There is nothing she enjoys better than to watch the discomfiture of a resident who, after he has roundly abused the former Premier is politely informed that she is the wife of the abused one.

The past year was an eventful one for the Lang family, for, in addition to Labour being defeated at the Polls, two daughters and a son of Mr and Mrs. Lang were married, their first grandchild was born, and they suffered the great, loss of their, oldest son. Mrs.; Lang says that she never suffers from nerves —she has not time. Her husband, who is popularly supposed to be inching in nerve, docs really get nervous. But only for: a few days every two or three years. That is just before •he delivers liis policy speech. “When that is;over he says, ‘Thank God that's oyer!’ and|he Bcf:s8 cf:s i nto the fight; and that’s when I love him most. Por he is a born fighter,” Mrs Lanz says. : ,