THOUSANDS OF GIRLS NEEDED

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 16, 14 October 1942, Page 4

THOUSANDS OF GIRLS NEEDED

Women’s Land Service MEETING FARM LABOUR SHORTAGE

(By Telegraph. —Press Association.) AUCKLAND, October 13.

The need for thousands of girls to offer themselves to the Women’s Land Service for work on farms throughout the country was emphasized in an interview by Mrs. A. N. Grigg, Opposition M.P. for Mid-Canterbury, who has been holding a series of meetings in the Waikato and Thames Valley areas on behalf of the service. She and Mrs. Dreaver, Government- M.P. for Waitemata, who has been holding similar meetings in the north, were assigned 28 places to visit before they left Wellington, but so many meetings have already been held in the Auckland province that Mrs. Grigg said, the original number would have to be greatly increased. During her tour, she said, she had listened to some pitiful stories of farmers trying to keep up production in the face of an acute labour shortage. There were many elderly farmers who had tried tp carry on after their sons or farm hands had gone into the services, and the stage had now been reached where the extremely arduous work involved was finding them out. Farmers’ wives had responded magnificently to the plight of their husbands, but they too were never more in need of help than they were now. Unless the Women’s Land Service could obtain the large numbers of recruits wanted production must suffer. Also giving wonderful assistance on the farms were the daughters of farmers. These girls, said Mrs. Grigg, were eligible for membership of the Women’s Land .Service, and would be issued with the distinctive brown dress uniform, chosen for this branch of the women’s war work. At present they were not eligible for working uniforms, but it was her hope on her return, to, Wellington to have these also made available to farmers’ daughters doing a real job of work on the farms. Centralized Hostels. Another development she hoped would come was the organization of centralized Women’s Land Service hutment areas or hostels, where land service girls could live, going out to their different farms every day and returning at night. However, so many applications for girl land workers were in hand from farmers ready and able to provide accommodation that the first need was to supply these girls. i At one of the towns she had visited, said Mrs. Grigg, she had addressed high school girls and boys who would shortly be leaving school. She felt that there should be a good pool of girls who could join the Women’s Laud Service among those of 18 to 20 years of age. They were not liable for registration for war service till they reached the latter age, and if they could go on the land at the age of IS they would be doing an immensely valuable job. ft was therefore her intention to expand the idea of addressing senior high school girls at future meetings which would be continued after the conclusion of the present session of the House of Representatives.

Tlie possibility of instituting some form of rewarding efficient service by ■Women’s Land Service members had also occurred to her, said Mrs. Grigg. Obviously there could be no rank in such a service, but perhaps a service stripe could be awarded after so many months of efficient work.