WOMEN AND THE ELECTION.

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24907, 21 June 1946, Page 2

WOMEN AND THE ELECTION.

“CARRIERS OF BASKETS AND PARCELS” NATIONAL PARTY PRESIDENT ON “PAPER PROSPERITY” - The Press ' - Special Service WELLINGTON, June 20. "There has been no election, since women received the franchise, when they have had so much at stake,” said Mr W. J. Sim, K.C., president of the National Party, in his address at the opening of the annual conference of the party. ‘‘With the advance of a material civilisation, the Christian Church, whose fundamental tenet is the sanctity of the individual, is overshadowed or eclipsed by the new State Socialism, and women begin to lose ground Jn the scramble for material advantage.

"In the-East the picture is a familiar one of the lord and master riding his donkey, with his wife obediently carrying her load on foot, behind. In New Zealand we have reached the carrying of baskets and parcels on foot over long distances, and frequently up steps ahd steep hills. Numerous eulogies have been paid to women workers in the forces and services, and we endorse all that has been said; but no one in authority that I have heard seems at all noisy in his appreciation of„the women who have borne, and still bear, the burdens in the streets or the equally painful burden of making tooth ends meet in the home.’’ Women had a realistic way of looking at things, he continued, and would not be deceived by "paper prosperity.’’ The question to them was not the paper value of the wages, but what had come into the house m the way o/* 00 ** ail d clothing, and other necessities He suggested that for a Friday night text they might borrow from the ancient prophet: "Ye have sown much and bring in little-. . . and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put into a bag with holes.” The National Party was only too aware of the holes in the bag at the present moment, and was giving searching attention to increasing the purchasing power of existing wages by reducing taxation, by offering every other incentive to the production of more goods—in other words substantially to shape the welfare of the country, conditioned by the present Pressing needs of the housewife. Elaborate State planning and ambitious schemes were futile as a salvation of the race when in the process the present and future mothers of the nation had the life crushed out of them. Women could/ rest assured that no big meetings, vociferous or otherwise, were necessary to urge the National Party to do its plain duty.