The busy click of typewriters in the General Post Office shows that in that department alone many are engaged. The work entailed under the Military Service Act in the Government Statistician’s Department and the Pay Department has absorbed a great deal of women labour. Between them they probably employ nearly 350 girls and women. In the public service, women employed as casuals do not start at less than £1 a week. Some of them receive £2, but experience has shown that a girl has to be of more than average ability to be really worth more than £1 10s a week. In exceptional cases, however, they range up to as much as £3 a week. In the case of some industrial agreements and awards — the grocers’ and the typographical, for instance — it is specified that if a women does the same class of work as a man she shall receive equal pay. A few girls have found their way into grocers’ shops as the result of the depletion caused in the ranks of the men, and, except in the case of a girl behind the sweets counter, are entitled to receive men’s wages. The female typesetter has not materialised in Wellington, although in some country districts she is not a novelty.
• A public meeting of residents of Maniototo was held at Ranfurly on Friday to discuss the matter of telephone communication between the Maniototo district and Dunedin. It is understood that it is the intention of the Government to establish telephone communication between Alexandra and Dunedin by a line from Sutton direct to Alexandra via Paerau. This line completely cuts out the Maniototo district, and the meeting resolved that the time was ripe to urge on the Government the necessity of connecting Maniototo with the telephone at an early date. The meeting appointed a committee to deal with the matter, and it is intended to use every effort to secure a definite promise from the Government that telephonic communication will be established. The value to the farmers and business men of the district would be inestimable.
• A young Salvation Army captain who assisted to collect £2900 for the Gisborne Corps for the self-denial appeal, had to undergo great hardships in his travels through the Poverty Bay country. Early in the campaign he was swept off his horse in a flooded river and became entangled in the animal’s forelegs. For a time he struggled to free himself without success, but, with aid of the current, he at last extricated himself and gained the bank from which he had started. This mishap caused him a delay of some days, and the cheques he sent back to headquarters were so disfigured by water that it was found hard to negotiate them at the banks. Before his mission was completed, the captain crossed the river in which he had so nearly lost his life 99 times, and another river in the vicinity he crossed on 30 separate occasions.
• It was stated at the monthly meeting of the Stoke Fruitgrowers’ Association the other evening that the fire or pear blight, for which there was no known cure, had been introduced into Australia in a shipment of fruit trees from Japan, and with a view to preventing its introduction into New Zealand a resolution was carried asking the Orchard Departments, in view of the possibility of the introduction of the blight into New Zealand, to give growers all information as to its characteristics and appearance. — ODT 6.11.1916
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
