N.Z. Farmers Wives Said To Be Hardest Worked

Grey River Argus, 1 September 1948, Page 4

N.Z. Farmers Wives Said To Be Hardest Worked

I Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.] LONDON, August 30. Writing in the. “Farmers’ Weekly,” a correspondent, Beryl Hearnden, who has oeen touring New Zealand, says: “I have come to the conclusion that the farmer,’s wife works harder than anyone I have met in this country. New Zealand may be a workers’ paradise in the towns, but there is no 40-hour week in the country here, "either.” Describing her impressions of varying types of farming in the New Zealand backblocks, Miss Hearnden says> “The difficulties of New Zealand farmers’ wives are due partly to isolation and partly to lack of labour. Particularly on the larger stations, the shortage of labour is not a matter of money. Domestic workers can get good money in the towns, and dislike the isolation of the country.” After describing conditions, on a large sheep run,' the correspondent says that life on the smaller farms is “even tougher.” She describes the day-to-day routine of a farmer’s wife on a 1,000acre backblocks farm, where the wife did all the butter-making, housework and cooking, looked after the poultry and, in addition, during the period of Miss Hearnden’s visit, was trying to give the children their school lessons by a correspondence course, because of the closure of the schools during the poliomyelitis epidemic. “The women do not complain,” she says, “though many of them look tired and harassed. Talking to them, I found that the worst part of it is their fear of feickness. They can make out when things are normal, but there is no margin for accidents. If anything goes wrong there is no one to help.” Miss Hearnden suggests that what many backblocks areas in New Zealand lack is a replica of the English village. “In many areas the local hall will be in one place, the school in another, the store in a third,” she says. “If they could all be brought together, and possibly houses for married farm workers erected round them, the business of taking children to school and gathering stores would be simpler for the farmer’s wife.