THE WOMEN OF NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13683, 26 February 1908, Page 11

THE WOMEN OF NEW ZEALAND.

"A Ml-ch-tkatelled New Zealand Womaa*^ writes to us as follows;—" Having been a reader of Mr*. Edith Searle Crewman's article on 'The Women of New Zealand.' and also of Miss or Mrs. Edith oabb's much loss .interesting contribution, [would like, if you will allow me, Jo odd a 'few'.remark*: of my own. .Aa-'"regards' the New- Zealand .women being travellers) Edith abb's obser.vation nmrit. indeed have been superficial if she , lias not: discovered • that the New Zealanders, -taking the population in comparison .with' that of other countries, are the most-travelled people in the world. .There are more people travelling to England every year from New Zealand and, if returning via America, making the tour of the world than any other colony or Dominion; and yet we have the smallest population. Hardly can you speak to one man or woman in Now Zealand who has not been, or is just going, or who hopes to go, to England. If not to England, they travel across to Australia to see the big cities there; and yet there are ; thousands of women in England who are afraid' to cross (lie Channel, a trip that can be accomplished in one hour, five minutes less time than it takes us to go for a picnic or a day's outing to Motutapu or Bangitoto.

"As for precocity in children, after staying in.country houses' in England I came to the conclusion thai; the children there were hard to beat. I will give one instance: A little' mite , of six or seven, noticing some pearls round his aunt's neck, asked her in a very old-faahioned and patronising way, 'Are your pearls real, auntie, or are they artificial?' And his aunt was much embarrassed and remarked to me afterwards, ' Fancy asking me that in front of a roomful of people—horrid, precocious, little wretch!' No wonder they keep their children out of sight as .much as possible in England. There one meets indeed the 'enfant terrible' with &_ vengeance. If Edith Gabb has found the New Zealand children rude, is it not because they are, as Mrs. Grossman says, 'fundamentally British?' Therefore why blame them for the characteristics of their forebears? Are they not truly 'chips of the old block?'

"And now our climate, our charming, delightful, yet much-abused, climate. Edith Gabb complains, because in the hottest weather we have cool nights and mornings. If we sweltered night as well as day so that life 'became a burden and sleep a luxury, who would complain then, who but Miss or Mrs. Gabb? But since Providence has seen fit to give us the priceless blessing of cool refreshing nights and mornings to better fit us for the day's work, who still complains? If we surfer from rheumatism have wo not another evidence of the care of Providence in placing Kotorua so near? Yet, strangely enough, when visiting Rotorua one is struck with the fact that the worst sufferers from rheumatism, the most deformed, the most helpless, the worst cripples, come from other countries. The boardinghouses and hotels are full of visitors from other lands, many coming from the other end of the world to be cured. The New Zealandors are the healthy, the strong, the vigorous, who patronise the tennis and croquet lawns, the bowling greens, and the various excursions. "With regard to' the New Zealand girl, Edith Gabb differs from Mrs. Grossman essentially. No doubt, being an Englishwoman, Edith Gabb will admit no charm or culture in any other nationality; but when Mrs. Grossman writes of the charm, the vivacity, and the culture of the New Zealand girl, she writes of that sine knows. Mrs. Grossman is known to .me personally, and is a charming and clever woman and a lady. She has lived' in New Zealand for years, and is therefore quite competent to write on the subject; while Edith Gabb admits herself that she has only superficial knowledge. If Edith Gabb has not found any culture in New Zealand, all that I can say 13 that she must have mixed in strange isqcjety, or probably it is that being English she does not recognise culture when she meets it. "And last, but not least, the great subject of woman's suffrage. Certainly in that one point Edith Gabb is right. There are many women who do not really understand what they are votinng for; but these, if they do no good, neither do they do much harm. We in New Zealand had the woman's franchise given to us free, without our needing to ask. What do we see in England, what are they doing, these unfeminine women, these suffragettes? Sorry would I be to see the women of New Zealand demeaning, or rather misdemeaning, themselves in like manner. What are these Englishwomen doing but making a laughing stock of .themselves for the whole world—banging at the doors of. the Ministers, rolling in the mud with hats awry and hair dishevelled, fighting with policemen, and finally, amid the jeers of the populace, carried off to prison. How refined! how cultured how ladylike! And these are ladies (?) of England! How are the mighty fallen! It is. enough to make the angels weep."

James W. Oarr writes: Upon reading the article under the above heading in your Saturday's Supplement the question to my mind was why this lady only one year in the Dominion has dared to write of our sweet lasses, of whom we are'so proud, in a tone of disparagement. And why in regard to no-license she displays animus and an inability to understand a cause which carried with it a majority of the electors at the last poll in 1905, a cause established in 1842 by a few earnest men who desired to prevent in this young country a repetition of the evils attending the alcohol habit as provailing in the Old Country, I claim ihat the opinion of Mrs. Gabb as regards the failure of nodicense in Invercargill w contrary to facta as published and the evidence of our highest officials, that the publication of the contrary' is apt to mislead, and serves only to make light of a serious movement, entered on in the interest and for the benefit of the community, in which many workers spend time and money. As one of them I appeal for fair play, which hitherto has not obtained because of the sly pinpricks such as in this.