HOUSEHOLD SHOCK TROOPS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25562, 15 June 1944, Page 4

HOUSEHOLD SHOCK TROOPS

In a very tentative scheme for enlisting temporary domestic help where it is urgently needed the Man-power Department will have at least the cordial goodwill of those women who may • expect at some time to be in need of assistance in their homes. The difficulty of obtaining help in the house has for long been very acute in New Zealand. War time opportunities for employment of a less onerous nature, and man-power directions to young women to essential industries, have reduced the number of domestic helpers available to very small, and even negligible, proportions. Yet quite apart from those persons who have maintained their standard of living on the assumption of labour being employed in the house, and whose present inconvenience will not excite distress in a class-conscious Government, there is an essential field for domestic servants. In outlining the scheme which is to be introduced the Director of National Service indicated generally the persons most in need of consideration. His list commences with the farmer’s wife and family who cannot reasonably cater for the paid labour employed on the farm; next come cases of illness and expectant motherhood, and of old people who cannot themselves attend to their home duties. But, he added, hospitals and mental hospitals must continue to have first claim on domestic labour. With this and other qualifications it is not possible to expect that the scheme for, establishing district pools of womanpower for emergency home duties — a sort of company of domestic shock troops—will be very successful at the present time. The total number of women who would be available for duty of this nature on call cannot in me first place be very large; and it cannot be pretended that the kina of service demanded, of accepting the hard drudgery and responsibility for the care of a household in time of distress or other emergency, is

likely to prove attractive. In seeking the co-operation of women’s organisations the Man-power Department is at least assuring that the scheme will be presented to the women of New Zealand, particularly in the country districts, with force and reason. If there is any prospect of persuading the right type of person that the role of the woman with a mop is no less ennobling than that of the lady with a lamp, it is the women themselves, and not the man-power authorities, with their brisk and comprehensive authority, who will succeed in doing it.