"WAR HEROINES"

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 9, 19 September 1944, Page 6

"WAR HEROINES"

WOMEN IN COWSHEDS

M.P. ASSAILS MINISTER

A livelj' attack was made on the Minister of Finance (the Hon. W. Nash) by Mr F. W. Doidge ? M.P. in the course of his speech on the Budget.

"The Minister attended the, Dairy Association conference and talked a lot of platitudes about lifting the standard of living for everybody " said Mr Doidgc. "When the Minister was doing one of the, delegates interjected: 'What about the Avomen milking cows?' The Minister's. reply was: 'They should be saved from the men who let them do it.' Could there have been a more impertinent rejoinder. No wonder it has aroused indignation throughout the country. We, know that on the great majority of farms women are working to help their menfolk, in the cowsheds. We simply could not cany on production without those women. The women in the cowsheds are. amongst the, heroines of this war. They are working seven days a week; working in dungarees ol ten'without gumboots working in these cold winter days on wet concrete lioors."

The. Minister would not yet his standard of living in New Zealand il' it were not for the farmers' wives" added Mr Doidge. "Tens of thousands of these women arc working in the cowsheds to produce the wealth of the country. They do it because they have-to. The rewards to the industry do not permit anything else. Give to the industry what it e,arns, what Britain wants it to have T and then we might be able to'get the women out of the cowsheds. Then they will have some other reward than those words which fell from the Minister on the occasion to which I have referrrd. 1 would like to express myself more freely concerning the slur cast by the but if ! frankly spoke ii)i; mind I should, be called to order."