THE BOYS AND THE GIRLS.

Thames Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 16179, 21 August 1916, Page 4

THE BOYS AND THE GIRLS.

The question ever preeerit in the minds of anxious parents; what sh'ai* we do with out boys I was once conclusively answered—■' 'Marry them to i our girls." The position since the war ii^s been reversed, and yftie query now is what shall wo do with the I girls, that is to Kay the girls who are filling men's places, while the latter [are at the front. When Jobnny^comes marching home again, wb.4t about his billet now held by members of -the fair sex? Mr G. M. Thomson has recently been discussing -the problem in Dunedm. "As soon as, iliia war Ik over, he said, "we shall have 50,000 or 60,000 men coming back, and what I are you girls going to do?—I mean thegirls who are at present taking the i places of these men? When the man return they will expect to find occupation, and it is certainly the duty of the community to see that these men,, who have risked thejf lives for us, should have the first opportunity of getting into employment again. When I went into the Union Company's office in Wellington a month ago I found the office nearly,full of young women attending to the public, and I said to"■the 0110 who handed me my ticket: '"What are you girls going to do when the boys comeback? She , tossed her head and replied: Oh, I we're going to ; marry them —we wouldn't marry the blighters who won't go.' Well, that's all very well I as an off-hand answer, but there are going to bo many thousands of these , men, and, although marriage would be the very thing that the country wants if the girl isthe right sort and the man is the right sort, and they ' suit one another, there will be numbers of cases in which the remedy i proposed will not meet the case, and '■ it's going to be a serious problem."