HIGH LIVING COSTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27390, 16 May 1950, Page 2

HIGH LIVING COSTS

Housewife’s Problem In United States Not all American homes are equipped with the labour-saving devices that one would expect, said Mrs J. G. Groeninger, formerly of Auckland, who visited Dunedin last week before her return to her home in Calvert County, Maryland. Mrs Groeninger, a New Zealand woman, after living in this country and in England has recently set up house with her husband, a former American consul in Maryland, where they have taken an old homestead and intend to grow tobacco. " Our house is only 35 miles from Washington,” she said, “ but we have no electric light, and to get. our mail we have to row across a creek half a mile vy ( ide.” Alterations to the house were enormously expensive, and the contractor expected to be paid in instalments as the work progressed. All their neighbours grew tobacco and “ corn on the cob,” but any idea that there was an abundant supply of coloured labour to do all the work was quite false. The “ old mammy of the South” had disappeared; wages were high and coloured people much preferred the gaiety of the towns to work on the land. Maryland was by tradition a province where good cooking was esteemed, but nowadays the "Maryland fried chicken ” cost about the same as in New Zealand. Butter was the equivalent of 4s a lb, and meat and ham were much dearer than they were here. On one of her visits to a local country store Mrs Groeninger noted men’s socks on show with the label “ Made' in New Zealand." There is, of course, not the same necessity in Maryland for warm clothes, but Mrs Groeninger deplores the lack of suitable shoes there. Women constantly wear the open-toed shoe and in bad weather put on rubber overshoes. Some good walking shoes or sheepskinlined boots would, she thinks, be ideal for the country near her. In general, Mrs Groeninger said, clothes were available in a big price range. People seemed to spend a large proportion of their earnings on clothes, and on as much gay night life as they could get. Americans in Maryland had been grumbling recently about the taxation, she added. It was extremely high, and with all kinds of purchases subject to special extra State taxes it was obvious and very annoying to the customer. When she left on her visit to New Zealand the newest tax to be mooted was one on the length of each house!