WOMEN’S LAND SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 18, 16 October 1942, Page 4

WOMEN’S LAND SERVICE

No tribute was more fully earned than that paid by Mrs. A. N. Grigg, M.P., to the womenfolk on the farms of the Dominion. They have indeed been doing “a real job of work,” not for a special occasion, but Week in and week out right through long seasons, and it would be difficult to over-value their assistance in maintaining production. Enrolment in the Women’s Land Service should logically entitle the daughters of farmers to the same issues of uniform as those given to new recruits, and if the knowledge and experience of these young country women could be made available for the instruction of those .who volunteer for farm work the standard of efficiency would be raised rapidly. The provision of Women’s Land Service hutment areas or hostels, mentioned by Mrs. Grigg, might be possible in certain districts, but would depend largely on the class of farming. On the average dairyfarm the work commences at such an early hour that the worker must be on the' spot. At the present time there are no means of conveyance from a central hostel to the scattered farms, and meanwhile the demand from farmers able to provide accommodation will absorb all recruits available. But there will be need for the provision of some social life for these young people, and that is why it was suggested in these columns that possibly the branches of the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union, or the Women’s Institutes, would undertake the necessary arrangements. There are obvious possibilities in the employment of girls now under the age when they must register for war work. Even if they cannot undertake continuous wofk at present they should be of assistance over the peak period, and the experience would help to fit them for land work at a later stage. Young people from the towns and cities of the Mother Country have played no unimportant part in harvesting the record crops there this year. The people of the Dominion, as a whole do not realize what a struggle is being faced on many farms simply to keep things going. If production is to be maintained, then an increasing share of the labour available for national requirements must be detailed for work on the land., and that is what makes the recruiting campaign on which .Mrs. Grigg and Mrs. Dreaver have been engaged a matter of national impoitance.