IMPRESSIONS OF N. Z.

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 32, 5 July 1939, Page 6

IMPRESSIONS OF N. Z.

''WOMEN STURDY FROM DRAWING CARTS" UNUSUAL PUBLICITY BY WOMEN'S INSTITUTE MEMBERS The following is a,n extract from the London Daily Mail telling of the arrival of the Women's Institute party in England. In parts it is most amusing, and remindful of tne letter which a Tauranga lady received from a relative in England not many years backj asking it was possible to get to the post office with, out encountering wild pigs. We think "streamlined cars'* have found their way to New Zealand, and under" what circumstances could our grass be described as ''brown''? Mrs Butland and Mrs Edwards, will be able to discount owing their ''sturdy'' figures to drawing carts as they are English born,, and we have j no doubt the others in the Tauranga party will have a merry time in explaining away their appearance— plump or thin. On the Bushland in New Zealand (Daily Mail) "Twenty women who have never before been this side of the equator saw the green fields of Kent and sighed, ''Ah, home at last." They were the first contingent of New Zealand's 70 women delegates to the June conference of the Asso. elated Country Women of the World Many are granddaughters of New Zealand's first settlers, Many havu spent their entire lives on bushland farms with only a monthly mail conr " tact with news from England. Streamlined cars, Gracie Fields, and the London policeman have been printer's ink to them; vet they called the Kent fields and Waterloo Station ''Home." Sold Farm for Home Nothing can diminish the New Zealand woman's patriotism. One of the party, Mrs G. Atkins, of Nelson j sold up the farm her grandfather bought in 1542 just to come home with her husband. He is 64, she 59. For 35 years they have grown hops and tobacco, many miles outside Nelson, yet neither drinks or smokes and the money saved has gone to pay .for their visit. Miss E.'M. Kinrose, 'headmistress of a boarding school for Maori girls at Marton, North Island, and Miss E. M. Truman, the matron could not believe that the green they saw from the carriage window was grass. "New Zealand grass is brown,'' they told a Daily Mail reporter. Many of their pupils return to wood, en shacks for their holidays. Others take to English ways of living and marry white settlers. Miss Kinrose carries a, letter from New Zealand'is Minister of Education, the Hon. P. .Fraser, to the High Commissioner, Mr W. J. and is hoping he will arrange for her to visit girls' schools in England. Miss Truman hopes to learn something from visits to the home country's domestic science colleges. Most of the women are sturdy from milking cows and drawing carts. The. only frail.looking member is littleMiss B. A. Jesson,, yet she started her voyage home with a seven-miles drive down a mountain side, >aSX precipiccs, and through bush. The delegates will discuss the proi>_ , lem of welfare centres and child edu- J cation in outlying districts of New j Zealand.