TOUGH & CAPABLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 May 1941, Page 6

TOUGH & CAPABLE

' STAUNCH BRITISH LAND GIRL. Farmers need have no fear of breaking the backs of the women’s Land Army. Modern women are tough and capable of giving all but the very best of the stronger sex a thorough good I hiding. That is what Mr R. S. Hudson, Minister of Agriculture, told farmers, ! landowners and workers at Dorcester. I He deplored as the ‘height of folly and short-sightedness" the p esent spate of criticism of the possible usefulness of land girls. “At the Ministry of Agriculture,”' he said, “there is evidence from farmers all over the country of land girls who have proved their worth. I should say if anything that women were tougher now than they were in the Victorian days. They fly to Australia, they swim the Channel, they drive motor-cars across deserts, and, less spectacular pursuits, they drive lorries and delivery vans.” British agriculture was faced with the biggest job it had ever been called upon to tackle. They had got to make a success of it if Britain was to win the war. The extra food that farmers produced last year had made it possible for more tanks and more guns to batter down the defences cf Tobruk, and they had got to do the same, only more so, this year.