WOMEN'S LAND SERVICE

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 245, 17 October 1942, Page 3

WOMEN'S LAND SERVICE

NEED F'GR THOUSANDS OF RECRUITS. MRS A. N. GRIGG DISCUSSES CAMPAIGN. Thousands of girls are needed by the Women's Land Service for work on farms throughout the country, according to Mrs A. N. Grigg, the Opposition member of Parliament 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 M. M. Dreaver, the Government member 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 saicl the originai 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 to 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 flnding them out. Farmers' wives had responded magniflcently 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 and the country must suffer Also giving wonderful kssistance on farms were the daughters of farmersThese 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 women's war work. At present they were not eligible for worklrig 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 farms.

Another development she hoped would come was the organisation of centralised 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 liand from farmers ready and able to provide accommodation that the ftrst need was to supply these girls. CHANCE FOR YOUNGER GIRLS. 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 Land Service among those of 18 to 20 years of age. They were not liable for registration for war service until they reached the latter age, and if they could go on the land at the age of 18 they would be doing an immensely valuable job. It was therefore her intention to expand the idea of addressing senior high school girls at future meetings, which would be contlnued after the conclusion of the

present session of the House of Representatives. The possibility of instituting some form of rewarding efficient service iby Women's Land Service members had also occurred to Mrs Grigg. Obviousfy, there could be no rank in such a service, but perhaps a service stripe could be awarded after so many rnonths of efficient work. y _