WOMEN’S ARMY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 October 1939, Page 8

WOMEN’S ARMY

VITAL PART IN HOME DEFENCE j — WORK IN GREAT BRITAIN. INSTITUTE LEADER TAKES CHARGE. One phase of national service which cannot fail to interest New Zealand women is work on the land. The women’s land army in England is a vast and vital part of the home service. It is of special interest to countrywomen in New Zealand, many thousands of whom are members of Wom - en's Institutes, that the woman in charge of the Land Army in Great Britain is the chairman of the National Federation of English Women's Institutes, Lady Denman. J. W. Robertson Scott, commenting on her appointment as chairman, in his history of the Institutes Movement, says of Lady Denman, “she had the invaluable faculty of devotion, and what is much needed along with devotion, humour, and a sense of perspective, but there are not two things, but one. She had the faculty of order, the knack of detaching herself, and she was fair. Above all, she had vision, and she had the leader's ability to hit hard or to tap gently till the nail was driven home.”

The last war actually gave great impetus to the growth of the ne\vlyfounded institutes in England. Their value as a means of organising land work was recognised early, and the movement received a tremendous financial backing from the State. Working in close co-operation with the Board of Agriculture, the women's institutes gave valuable assistance in the training of women for work on the land.

Remembering only too well the val • ue of women’s institutes in the last war, the Government of Great Britain, when it decided to broach the subject of a land army last year, immediately called in Lady Denman. Within a few months it was decided that, as well as enrolling volunteers, the Department of Agriculture wanted girls to be trained to drive tractors so that they could take over when the men were called up. In every county of England girls were enrolled, medically examined, and sent either to agricultural colleges or selected farms for two weeks' training. STRONG GIRLS ONLY. Only strong girls are eligible for the work, and it provides a splendid opportunity for many office workers with a longing to work outdoors. Lady Denman believes that the majority of people would be happier living in the country and that more country life in the community would work sociological changes for the better. She is a believer in the value of small plots of land-holding as a stabilising factor in the depressing scheme of things dominated by unempoyment. She worked on committees that eventually won small plots of land for thousands of working men. She watched the crops they grew. During the last war she learnt that the canning of fruit and vegetables was one of the greatest contributions of work women can do in times of such emergency. She believes that women should do the marketing of the produce and understand prices and conditions.

By 1915 the Women's Institutes were being pushed and supported by many organisations, from the Government down. Their growth at this time was amazingly rapid. A writer commenting in the London Times of November, 1915, says that “Woman’s duty to the State since she cannot fight is surely to make the best possible use of all her powers in its service,” and goes on to state that “the formation of institutes is of national importance insomuch as they should form a link between women of all classes and bind them together in a community of effort to carry out the urgent demands of their country.”

I LAST WAR EFFORTS. Newspapers of this time contain much news of women's, effort to sustain production on the land. There are details of working demonstrations, and accounts of the work from afforestation and dairying to fruit-bottling and grading, and the rearing of chicks and ducklings. One demonstration showed the prowess of women in handling and harnessing teams of horses for farm work. Milkers were trained in batches. By 1916 the Times commented that a new interest had been aroused among all classes of rural women in matters both of local and national concern. From the very beginning it wasj realised that the institutes provided in- 1 struction which could be turned to account not only by the Board of Agriculture, but by the Ministry of Health, the Treasury, and the county councils. When the war ended the institutes were such a working force in every rural community in Great Britain that they were carried on by their own momentum, and have through the following years become an organised force of such, power in the country that the Government had no qualms about home production at the outbreak of this war. They did not need to ask “who will carry on" where the rural areas were concerned —the women were already trained, and are already doing their part as Britain's land army.'