HOUSEWIFE'S PARADISE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22830, 14 March 1936, Page 22

HOUSEWIFE'S PARADISE

ATTAINING THE IDEAL Interesting details of the English system of training women as house managers were revealed by Miss E. Torry, an English visitor who left by the Aorangi after a six weeks',tour of New Zealand. This system, said Miss Torry, was inaugurated by Octavia Hill and provided a course of training which fitted a woman to advise housewives on the many economic and domestic problems that eonfronted them. After the course of training was completed, a woman might secure an appointment under a co-operative building or housing society, theoretically aa rent collector. This, however, was the least of her duties. She had to be able to tender advice and expert information on such subjects as the relative advantages of gas and electricity, the approximate amount that each should cost per week, and where possible the reasons why such amounts were being exceeded. She also had to keep careful watch on how the housekeeper did her work and whether the place was being kept clean and in good repair. On occasion, too. she had to see that the" tenants were spending a due proportion of their wages on good food and that they did not get into debt. Such a trainee, Miss Tony explained, became not merely a rent collector, but a " guide, philosopher, and friend " to the tenants she visited regularly. For her export wOrk she received a very high salary. This led Miss Torry to speak of the way in which the housing problem lias been faced in England and Europe. During a recent tour of the Continent she made an exhaustive inquiry into this question on behalf of the Nursing Times, and has made some interesting deductions on what she saw. "In very many eases," she said, "it has been found necessary for Governments and city councils to build new houses or blocks of flats and rent them at prices fixed, not by the cost of the building, but by the capacity of the tenant to pay. The deficit is defrayed out of the public money. This leads to the momentous question of what proportion of income is a suitable rent. In England the proportion is estimated at one-fifth, in Germany, Denmark, and Holland as a quarter, while Belgium puts it as low as a sixth."

A drastic scheme, Miss Torry continued, had been adopted by the Vienna Municipal Council, which since 1919 had a strong Socialist majority. By this scheme citizens were taxed in such a way that existing landlords could hardly touch a penny of rent; all the money that might have been paid as rent went into the council's Building Fund, and at the end of each year this 'money was used to build new blocks of flats, for which rents were charged that the tenants could afford. Thus the usual method of building with borrowed money on which interest had to be paid out of local taxes Was avoided. These Vienna flats, said Miss Torry, were the most-talked-of in all Europe. They were equipped with a space in the centre consisting of green playing grounds and splashing pools for the children. There were also artistically decorated kindergartens, playrooms, and creches for the children and elubrooms for adults. This, Miss Torry admitted, allowed little opportunity for home life, but this was not considered of such vital importance. The bathrooms were situated all together downstairs, and could be imed on the payment of a small sum. The difference between these flats and those being built in England was a noticeable one. The Vienna flats had only three rooms for a family with two children, whereas the regulation in Britain provided for sufficient bedrooms to allow for the segregation of the sexes as the children grew up. The housewife's paradise, in Miss Terry's opinion, was found in Sweden, where every conceivable labour-saving device was employed, including electric washing and drying machines, as well as both automatic and hand irons.

Mine Torry. though still young, has led an eventful life, having spent some years on the Continent and some time in America. For some years she lived in Belgium as private secretary to the Belgian historian, M. Fmile Cammaevts, and there her extensive knowledge of French, ttnlian, and German was of the greatest service to her. While in America she lived in Boston as secretary to Mr Lothrop Stoddard, a nrominent writer on ethnological and sociological problems. At present she is on a two years' tour of the world, and intends to spend nearly a year in Australia.