“WOMEN SLAVES”

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19884, 10 March 1939, Page 7

“WOMEN SLAVES”

RACE OF LAZY MEN CRITICISM OF X.Z. “We are rearing a race of lazy men and women slaves,’ said Mrs. J. Mowbray Tripp, speaking at a luncheon party, which she gave in Christchurch in honour of Miss Edith Thompson, of London, chairman of the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women. “I know how deeply all women’s organisations are concerned at the urgent need there is in our land for an increase in the migration of women,” continued Mrs. Tripp, “and no one can speak with greater authority than Miss Thompson on the possibilities we have of securing the right type of women migrants, who are a crying need in New Zealand. We have in the Dominion 21,000 more men than women.

“Miss Thompson lias heard overseas of the plight of our overworked women and exhausted young mothers —exhausted in a land that- boasts of a 40-hour week. Our women in the country know a 40-hour week only as a fairy tale on the radio. Our women are slaves, while the men arc growing lazy. "We are losing more perse ns from this land than are coming into it. When we celebrate our centenary next year, we can have no pride, for we will be celebrating the fact that we are practically a dying race. Instead of looking forward with the vision of our forefathers, we can only look back and feel proud of a glorious beginning. This matter of a carefully-planned migration policy must be given urgency; it is not a party matter. It is a matter of national welfare, in fact, of our very existence.”