WORKLESS WOMEN

Hokitika Guardian, 1 December 1932, Page 3

WORKLESS WOMEN

NEW SCHEME FOR EMPLOYMENT

CHRISTCHURCH, Nov©mbe r 30

How to afford r c -ief for •women ? That is a question of urgency. A scheme ■bus been propounded by a business man of wide knowledge and experience. The Minister for Employment, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, in an interview last week, .said that the proposals for the settlement of unemployed on the land had been reduced to two alternatives, which would be discussed at a conference of Departmental officers, and he added that of nearly 600 men settled unde r the ten-acre per cent, were no longer a charge on the .Government. DRESSED i POULTRY INDUSTRY.

“There is no smaller poultry-eating 1 community in the world than w e are in 7B.\v Zealand,” .said one poultry expert;, when discussing the scheme. This is because of the high price of dressed table fowls. Poultry at a .reasonable price would find a sympathetic market, and the 'birds could be raised cheaply by unemployed women, if Government assistance could be obtained to infet the initial cost. Th e average poultry farmer .who specialise, 3 in egg production rears White Leghorns and other good laying varieties. Every year at the hatching reason the has hundreds of chickens which he feeds for weeks 1 before he determines which are pullets 1 and which are cockerels. Then he has I two courses open to him with the cockj erels. Either he can kill them immediately, when they are valueless, and th,e cost of feeding them Iras been wasted, ! or he can continue to feed them until | they are marketable for the table. But ( gcod laying '-trains are not good for I the table, and the price he would receive would not repay him for what he had snent in feeding them. “With the proposed scheme for unemployed women tlic'ro would be no wa,ote. It i,3 suggested that tab'-e-b r eed;; should be reared such as Light Sussex and Cirping'ton. Cockerels of those strains are marketable at an early age, ; much sooner than White Leghorn pullets come to the production stage. Again, table poultry can be fatteried on p. much r,mallei' proportion of grain, food than is necessary to obtain the best results with' egg-producing breeds. TamO-poultfy can be success-' fully fed on lucerne chaff, mashed with pollard, a much cheaper food than wheat. iA ten-acre faUn growing green feed would feed .hundred-* 'of 'fowls and ia few cows and pigs, and would provide healthy, useful employment for at fewest., 30 girls or women under an experienced director.

, NEARNESS TO MARKETS. “To achieve the 'best results it would ’be essential that such a farm should be close to the city, which would make the project more costly. But at the present price of land small farms with buildings thereon can be bought handy to Christchurch at a reasonable price. If <a quarter of the money paid in unemployment tax by the women of OhiNTtchurch was devoted to settling women, on the land there is little doubt that in a few years the farms would be self-supporting. “There is no question of entering i'Jto competition with egg-producers,” said the exponent of the scheme. ‘‘The egg market is .already fully supplied, but I eav without fear of contradiction that the table-poultry market is not new fully supplied in Christchurch. In addition to raising poultry the girls and women could dreys the birds for market.

ADVANTAGES OF THE! SCHEME

“It ns admitted at the outset that money would bo needed for the launching of the scheme, hut money will also b en needed to place men on the land. So why should not women share in the adva.nia.gt*! ? is the pertinent question asked b.v those intersled in the present deplorable lot of many women. During the war land-g’i'ls proved their worth in Britain, so much so that in the Women’s Window in the Scottish National War M emorial in Edinburgh land-girls take their place with nurses, munition workers, and V.A.D.’s, and many New Z'aland soldiers who were at Bidekenhurst during the war period will remember what great work was done in dairy, liay-tiel'd, and poultry vnrd by tin* land-girls employ* d by Mrs Sanderson at Fo.vlease, in the. N'\v Forest, where the soldiers*were eften welcome guests. The unmployed

women who are “becoming despondent, almost hopeless, Would welcome the opportunity of doing healthy useful work, and of being self-supporting. The 'knowledge acquired would always be of benefit to them and to tlu‘ community. The scheme would save them from dead-end occupations and would give a reasonable return for tile money expended upon it—both in the improvement of social conditions, and it is confidently hoped, in hard cash.”