WORK OF WOMEN’S DIVISION OF F.F. FULLY OUTLINED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 46, 3 October 1949, Page 8

WORK OF WOMEN’S DIVISION OF F.F. FULLY OUTLINED

The work of the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers was traced fully by the Dominion President, Mrs J. ft. Haldane in the course of an address to members of the Bay of Plenty Women’s Division.

She outlined the Divisions’ housekeeping service in New Zealand and the big demands that were made on the home helps, who were always allocated to those homes where the need was greatest:

Maori Girls Trained Another large venture that the division had undertaken, she continued, had been the provision of rest homes for tired women. At these homes Maori girls, at the age of 15 or 16 were trained as junior mothers’ help. None of the four rest homes (two in the North Island and two in the South Island) were ever meant to be self-support-ing, explained Mrs Haldane, but the division did not want to make the gap between the revenue obtained and the administrative costs too big. With this in view- it was decided that husbands might also go to the rest homes with their wives and this had proved very successful.

“But, because we have these four 'rest homes,” she emphasised, “we do not think .that our work is completed. We are not going to stand still. Do you not consider that we, as women, should think about the care of old people? I maintain that when we grow old, our surroundings should be beautiful. Old people are entitled to be housed in homes • —not called old peoples’ homes—but pleasant Eventide Homes.” In 24 years, said Mrs Haldane, the division had grown from 16 to a membership of 25,000. “How powerful are we going to grow in the next 24 years?” she asked. Right throughout New Zealand women were losing their sense of security because of the numerous sexual crimes and murders, continued the president. Remits urging capital and corporal punishment and -life imprisonment had passed 0 into headquarters and been approved at Dominion conferences. Members had waited on the Minister of Justice and had been given a sympathetic hearing. They had asked for protection for women and considered that if capital punishment was put on the statute book it would act as a deterent to wouldbe murderers. Very Wide Powers

Although the division, does a great deal of philanthropic work, Mrs Haldane continued, there was also a great deal else done as well. The division was affiliated to the Associated Country Women of the World, which had very wide powers and responsibilities. ‘We of the Women’s Division in New Zealand, could be a great power in the creation of another world,” she said. “We have freedom of speech, of worship and we have the vote. We are one of the few countries of the world that give women these rights. We can be a movement to raise the standard of living in the world and we should demand that the first thing our statesmen do, is to remove the causes of war. On women depends the building of a family life. “I would like you to remember,” concluded Mrs Haldane, “that great things are done in God’s own time by little people—and we are some of those little people.”