WOMEN’S DIVISION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 June 1938, Page 4

WOMEN’S DIVISION

IDEALS SET FORTH. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, June 8. An account of the ideals for which the Women’s Division of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union stood was given by Mrs W. Elliott during her presidential address at the annual conference of the Otago provincial executive today.

Rising costs and falling value of produce, bringing “a feeling of insecurity and a slump complex,” caused Mrs Elliott to express -apprehension for the future.

“There is an uneasy feeling among thinking people of our country,” Mrs Elliott said, “that our moral standard is slipping, and we must use our power as an organisation to prevent this. We have been perturbed and appalled at questions mainly pertaining to the national health of our people. Time was when such questions were considered too indelicate for women to discuss, but now we must face and discuss them if, as women, our organisation means anything to us and if, because of our organisation, we are to hold our rightful place in the community. “We must take an intelligent interest in everything pertaining to the moral and educational life of the community and act accordingly. “The year just ended,” Mrs Elliott said, speaking of farming questions, "has not been so prosperous’ as last year. Most of our produce has shown a drop in values, and, added to this, there are rising costs and a feeling of insecurity—a feeling that our standing is precarious. Perhaps we have developed a slump complex, but all through the country people on the land are talking of another slump. “We have obviously no faith in our prospects. We know that nothing can advance unless the people of the world are fed, but is it right that people on the land should have to produce food below the cost of production? Already the trend is showing that way. The cry is for more production, and if we are to expand we must breed and improve our stock and our carrying capacity and keep our fences and pastures in good order, even if the cost of production rises so as to eclipse all profit. The present upward trend of costs and low profits, combined with the apprehension abroad today, is anything but encouraging. It is blurring vision and destroying the quiet mind of the man on the land, and we wonder what lies ahead for us.

“It is our duty,” Mr Elliott concluded, “to encourage every woman and every women’s organisation to combine to further a cause which aims at making perfect a machine in which the ideal is ‘that wise counsel prevail over might.’ Woman’s heart dictates to her the necessity for striving for these bulwarks of our civilisation —peace, progress, and freedom. The greatest of these is peace, for without it we cannot hope to enjoy the other two, progress and freedom.”