“SHEEPSKINS AND CLOGS”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23955, 2 November 1939, Page 12

“SHEEPSKINS AND CLOGS”

A VISION OF NEW ZEALAND VIEWS OF LADY HEWART “ When you come to London in your sheepskins and clogs you must come to see me. and I will show you what London is really like.” In these words. Lady Hewart. wife ot the Lord Chief Justice of England, who is revisiting New Zealand expressed to a Daily Times interviewer yesterday something of the feelings that have been prompted in her by a two-months’ stay in the country of her birth. For Lady Hewart formerly lived in Wanganui, and it was not until 12 years ago that she left this country for England. The remark about sheepskins and clogs perhaps requires some explanation It arose out of a long and somewhat complicated discussion of New Zealand’s present position in relation

to England particularly the exporters of England, and what is likely to be the outcome of the circumstances that have arisen as a result of the depletion of New Zealand’s sterling funds. “What is going to be the result of it all? ” Lady Hewart asked.

“ Well, whatever happens, it will probably give us a shove along on the road to self-sufficiency.” was the reply. “You mean that before long you will all be running around in sheepskins and clogs.” Lady Hewart concluded.

Although things are not likely to come to that pass. Lady Hewart considers that, for a woman, life is very much harder in New Zealand than in England. “ Women seem _to have to work so hard here." she said. “ Motoring down to Dunedin I saw women working on farms, carrying buckets of milk about, and looking as though life was very hard indeed I suppose they enjoy it, much as the pioneers did. but life for a woman is very much more pleasant in England, for England is a very pleasant place to live m. There are so many things there that you have read about and dreamed about that are there for the takingabsolutely free—age-old cities and historic places that are only names to those who have not the opportunity of visiting them.” Lady Hewart and her husband live in a village not far out of London, where the Lord Chief Justice, after a day at the lav/ courts, finds some respite from the bustle of the city There they entertain a good deal, and as Lady Hewart is a New Zealander and New Zealand has been rather in the news in the past three or four years, she is naturally called on to answer a good many questions about the country of her birth. She anticipates that her friends will want to know a good deal about this country when she returns shortly to England, for she is leaving this month and is travelling home by way of the United States. She will leave Dunedin to-day on a visit to the Lakes district.