"What is the Efficiency Board about? It proposes to strait-waistcoat picture shows, and as for the drink traffic would ‘reform it altogether’; but of this waste in feminine geegaws not a word."
What the Efficiency Board is about matters little. If it chimes with the ideas of the Government, well; if not, it is for the waste-paper-basket. Thus Sir Joseph Ward; whence it follows that the Efficiency Board is as though it had never been, and like Job may curse its day. But, as to women’s dress and the cry, How long, O Lord, how long? the answer is, just as long as men are men and women women. The truth is men like to see their womenkind dressed to advantage. Here and there some miserable old hunks might be cited to the contrary, but the rule is as I say. Men get a shock with every change of fashion, but speedily adjust themselves. Crinoline was right whilst the vogue was crinoline; bonnets pleased till hats came in; hats will satisfy till bonnets come back. Long skirts, short skirts, hobble skirts, — once accepted each phase passes with approval, as indeed would no skirts at all, if feminine caprice so willed. Women don’t dress to be seen of men, but to be seen of women. With the man, poor creature, give him time and whatever is, is right.
Women in the woolshed
Some time ago (says the Christchurch Press), a Canterbury farmer wrote to the Christchurch branch of the Women’s National Reserve, suggesting that women be employed on sheep runs, and stating that, in his opinion, several forms of standardised work in connection with shearing could be done by women equally as well as by men. Any young, light and active woman could, after a day’s practice, become fairly expert in fleece picking, wool-rolling, and carrying away. Older and less active women could do simple wool-classing, branding, and weighing bales, while a woman who was strong and active would find scope for her energies in assisting in mustering in easy country, and also in drafting, branding, and carrying away. The work of keeping the shed books, tallies, and counting could be done by any intelligent woman.
The writer suggested the following arrangements and rules: Women and girls to be employed in gangs of not fewer than three. One woman in charge except where one or two may be accommodated with the farmer or manager’s family. Women not so accommodated to live in tents apart from the other employees, and rationed by themselves. Any person using improper language or conduct towards (or within the hearing of) women so employed to be reported to the manager or the president of the W. N. R., when such steps as may be considered necessary may be taken in the matter. Any woman giving encouragement or provocation for such conduct to be strictly warned by the woman in charge and reported by the manager to the president of the W.N. R. The letter also contained a proposal that the writer should employ three women on his run, and that the Reserve should pick him out women whom they considered had the best qualifications for the positions.
At a meeting of the Reserve on Thursday the agreement to provide the workers was finally ratified, and it was decided that the girls engaged should commence work in the first week in November.
Puketoi remains
Human remains recently found in a cave on top of the Puketoi Ranges, at first said to be those of a Maori, are now alleged to be those of a European woman. — ODT, 4.8.1917.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
