ENDLESS TOIL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23507, 18 November 1939, Page 15

ENDLESS TOIL

Sir,—l quite agree with "Labour 110 More." Why should we work for just food and taxes? I am a farmer's wife, with five young children, and I was in the cowshed until the day they were born, and back three weeks later. 1, like hundreds of women, are ruining our health, slaving, to make a living, just because we cannot afford the high wages, as living expenses, taxes and running expenses leave so little for winter, when there is no money coming in. My husband and I are milking 90 cows; we are sliare-milkers. I have not a washing machine, refrigerator, electrolux, or even a wringer. My sole "luxury" is an electric iron. I collect my own wood and dliop it for washing. I spend seven hours a day in the cowshed. I do the cooking, the work of a big house, mending and sewing at night. I work 16 hours a day. My family ai-e young, and so cannot help me. What wages do farmers' wives have? We are unpaid slaves. We get our keep, and, if lucky, about two now frocks a year. Yet we are the grumblers, dissatisfied with whatever we get for butter-fat. Those who make such statements should change their job with a farmer or his wife for a month and I guarantee that one week would see them "fed up." Weary.