VISCOUNTESS CRAIGAVON.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 November 1929, Page 22 (Supplement)

VISCOUNTESS CRAIGAVON.

SOME INTERESTING IMPRESSIONS. In this visit to New Zealand which Viscountess Craigavon is paying with her husband, Viscount Craigavon, she is hoping to see something of the country life of New Zealand. ••After all,” she remarked to a Herald interviewer in Auckland, “one city is rather much like another in essentials, but it is in the country that one absorbs the real atmosphere of a place.” When they were in Australia so much hospitality was shown them and they attended so many functions that in the end they did not have time to go beyond the cities and that fact she somewhat regretted. “People have been so kind everywhere,” she remarked. “It is hard to find the time for all one would like to do.” ’ It was interesting to learn that Viscountess Craigavon is an English-woman, but she has spent the greater part ol her life ,in Northern. .Ireland and has. a strong aiiectipn fpr the people and the country. /‘There is something so wonderfully Joyal about .them and they never, play one; false,. My husband has been Prime Minister for eight years and in that time it- 'is natural that dissatisfaction in some, form or another should arise. One can never please everybody. When the opportunity came, however, when dissatisfaction, if it were felt, could have been expressed and Governments were crumbling everywhere, they rallied round the Government and returned it with a wonderful majority. They are so fine a people and so "very reliable.”' “Ulster women arc very politically minded,” she added. “It is in the blood and is the heritage of generations, intensified by history and position.” As wife of the Prime Minister, Lady Craigavon has taken a leading part in political work among women and is president of the Ulster Women’s Unionist Council. This is an organisation which . has branches all over Ireland and includes an immense number of Ulster women as its, main object is to keep women politically well organised.” she said. “In Ireland we have not got compulsory voting as it is in Australia, nor is it compulsory for people to be on the register, so that we do everything we can to keep the women well abreast in political matters and at election time to get them to the polls. They are wonderfully keen and enthusiastic, too, and work tremendously hard. The Women’s Technical Institutes are more helpful in the way of educational work and they, too, are established all over courses in them for cookery and various Northern Ireland. Women can take branches of domestic science and they are really very helpful.” Asked if they had the women's institutes established in Ireland as they had in England and Scotland, Lady Craigavon said that this was not the case. Probably the Women’s Technical Institutes were more akin to them than anything else, but they were under the Government aegis, while in England the women’s institutes were the work of the women themselves and not the Government.

One of. Lady Craigavon's questions was as to whether women in New Zealand were politically inclined and what their interests were. One of the reasons why she is so keen to see the country is to really see what the life of the people is and what are its conditions. .The visit which she and Viscount Craigavon paid to the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company’s factory at Paerata on Tuesday and impressed her immensely with the extent of the dairying industry in New Zealand as shown by alone. “In Ireland the industry is carried out under different conditions altogether. We have to house the animals and' there are not, generally speaking, the grazing areas that you. have in New Zealand.” Quite a number of women in Ireland went in. for poultry farms and bee-keeping, but dairy work had its limitations.” ' Viscountess Craigavon is' specially interested in all that she has heard of the Maori people of New Zealand and is looking forward to her visit to those parts of the country in which she is most likely to meet them. It is to New Zealand that she and her husband have come for a holiday and she is anticipating a thoroughly enjoyable and not too strenuous a time here. ENGAGEMENTS. The engagement is announced of Jean, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. R. Boddy, of “Paearuhi,” Pio Pio, to Frank, only son of Mr. and Mrs. A. Duncan, of “Bexley,” Awakinq. TARANAKI WOMEN’S CULB. A large iiumber attended' the final evening of the bridge circle of the Taranaki' Women’s Club, on Thursday and a very happy time was spent. f A Christmas party will be held on December 5 to end the activities of the i year. The activities will not be resumed until after Easter of next year, LAST SEASON’S WEAR. Unhappy the woman who finds her wardrobe half filled with the glories of last summer, for "it is said that the line, though at first glance the same, is really quite different. The flare and the hem are straighter, in spite of the general effect of width and lavishnese that comcfi through our skirts being flounced and our sleeves ballooned. Chiffon velvets persist for evenings, though flower patterns are never seen abroad in the smartest London night get-to-gethers. Crepella for day wear is to be a first favourite, and mulberry the shade of- the moment, if you are not a devotee of 1 white.