THE WAR AND EMIGRATION TO NEW ZEALAND.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2518, 20 July 1915, Page 6

THE WAR AND EMIGRATION TO NEW ZEALAND.

LETTER.'IL—FEMALE MIGRATION. Sir,—ln further reference to my letter of May 24, I would now ask yju to find Bpace for an appeal on behalf, at once, of the wives of tho farmers of New Zealanders, and of the widows of those who have fallen and will yet fall in her defence, as one of the primary intentions of Prussia was to transfer the Dominion to the German Empire. Before the outbreak, of hostilities we had 1,364,000 widows, or rather more than the excess of females over male inhabitants (1,336,000) at Home, and the number will be terribly increased before peace is signed. Many thousands of the civilian widows were young women of the working classes, hard-working, thrifty, and domesticated, and practically the whole of tho war widows will bo equally desirable as:liomo helps, especially oil farms where the loneliness of the life discourages girls to go to undertake domestic work, and the difficulties of inspection deter people from nending them out. The farmer's wife also prefers to have the assistance of a. reliable woman of . her own ago to that of a girl requiring instruction and control.

The experience of a score of widows, each- with one child, has been so satisfactory in New South Wales that such women are now regarded as potential domestic servants, and given reduced fares as such, with a corresponding reduction in the fares of the children. The latter act as an anchor to the mother, who does not want to go out at night or to leave her situation at short notice. Her interest in her child also removes much of the loneliness women otherwise experience in the backblocka. Will not New Zealand follow the example of her Mother State, and, after placing out all her own bereaved women, come to the assistance of those who are left alone, from their husbands having died for New Zealand and for the Empire at large ?

Receiving centres and districts for distribution can now be arranged in . advance, and inquiry will show tow m'any widows with one or two children can be received. It would be a great advantage if those of each division at Home could be placed out in the same distributing area. For example, widows of the Devonshire and Cornwaill Regiments could be placed out from New Plymouth, those of the Warwickshires from Stratford, those of . the Royal West Kent in Canterbury, those of the Wiltshires or Oxfordshires in Marlborough or from Blenheim, and so on. Such a movement would make for a United Empire, and reduce not only our own femininity of popjlation, hut also New Zealand's excess of over 53,000 males, who in time could thus hope to become 53,000 fathers, wbicli.at present is impossible. Written on our Queen's birthday, surely Ihis appeat will not fall on deaf ears, but the women of NewZealand will do somothing for their sisters at home. —I am, etc.,' ~■■■■ TIIOS. E. SEDGWICK. 33 Oriental Street, Poplar, London, E., May 26, 1915.