BRITISH WAR BRIDES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1961, 5 April 1919, Page 3

BRITISH WAR BRIDES.

Tlic Auckland Herald is being deluged with leftovs from and about V"'ar brides. Here is a particularly •'lively sample:—

Sir.—As one of the much-discus-.scd soldier’s wives who dared to

come to a British country with her husband, may 1 overstep the canons of good taste by offering some crilieism of the New Zealand women, who appear to regard us as some sti-ange kind of predatory animal guilty of descending on the sacred fold and stealing therefrom a superman? If the ladies who are so wroth at our dreadful conduct in snaring these unfortunate New Zealand soldiers are right, it is, of course, quilt' wrong for an Englishman to come to New Zealand in order to marry a New Zealand girl. In my humble opinion, the New Zealand women who have so harshly criticised us, find lime for this sort of thing because they have so little to do, and have remained blind, deaf overdressed during a period when the whole feminine world outside I lie Australasian dependencies ol; England were physically helping the men of the Empire to beat the Germans. I find that New Zealand women arc singularly ignorant of everything but (heir own immediate and domestic surroundings, totally unaware of the great sacrifices other women have made, ready even to criticise the various dialects which we English women ai’e proud

to speak, ami using a kind of exag-

gerated corknoy “patois” insufferably galling when U is used in derision oi‘ the women I'rom whence they themselves sprung. 1 Jiud in New Zealand what we should call “working women” at Home wearing anything up to £2O worth of elothes, and considering us “dowdy” because we have been Forced in England to those economics which were necess:yy (o victory. 1 find an almost universal dislike to. domesticity, an abominable disregard of duty to children, a fixed intention to destroy the country by “race suicide," and a sort of hectic rush to squeeze out .of (he moment all (he alleged “plcsure” this country afford,l seriously object; to the assumption of superiority in the New Zealand woman. She is in no sense superior, except in the ability to spend more on her back than she can afford. T object to the pitying (one of women; and ollicials alike. They describe ns as “very good type,” just .as any of your preposterous red tape officials would describe a newly imported sheep or cow. 1 find they are rather surprised at (he babies—babies being less common in these new and enlightened lands than in poor old “Darkest England.” Dag-

Jislnvomcn who lord, their courage Win both hands, as J suppose the. English women did who with Englishmen founded this country, arr* disillusioned. ' They believed, as T did, (hat the hospitality shown to all strangers —even strangers of foreign blood —in England was as comto Auckland as it is (o London. Xo doubt, in time tins aggressive and extremely rude antagonism will die down; but in the meantime many young and inexperienced British women, who believed they were coming among/friends, are astonished dial people wiio pride themselves on being British, also pride themselves on abusing Britons. ANNIE SHAW (nee Richie).