CO-OPERATION AND COUNTRY WOMEN.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19878, 6 May 1936, Page 3

CO-OPERATION AND COUNTRY WOMEN.

CONTINENTAL EXAMPLE. When the late Slr Horace Plunkett was asked. to sum up his 90o'peratlve gospel. he did so in the now famous words. “Better Farming. Better Business. Better Living." He never forgot that Better Farming and 'Better Business were after all only means towards the great human and of Better Living. hut direct efforts towards that end he looked upon as purely the task of the countrywomen. It was she who could use the resources pooled and the neighbourly feeling created by the 00-operative movement to improve the education, the health or the recreation of the countryside. In many countries women members and the \vi\‘e§_of members have formed their own associations, which meet. regularly. not only for co—onorative propaganda, but. for self—education and for the introduction of the. co—operative spirit into rural life. Some—times the result is a Village hall, sometimes the fostering of traditional arts and crafts; sometimes it is both, for there exists somewhere near the Danube a Village hall with walls admirably painted in a design of flowers and ears of corn by six untutored countrywomen who, with—out drawing up any preliminary plan, worked together so perfectly that any observer would imagine the hall had been decorated by a single utlst. And surely there could not he a better example of (no—operation,