~ needed.

ly. Dresses made
-ed cloth may shrink so badly,

WOMEN IN THE NEW EUROPE

Czechs plan for modern homes

minimize the number of dishes ly to the demands of life. An

PEOPLE ARE APT to con:
sider that the idea that women’s
place is in the home is old-
fashioned or of fascist origin.
But as long as houses are poor
in design and equipment, as long
as social services are scanty and
shopping and _ preparation of
meals difficult, however much
the law may say woman has the
same rights as man, she will in
fact be tied to her home if she
is a conscientious wife and
mother.

The present Czechoslovak gov-
ernment is keenly aware of this
fact. Women are urgently need-
ed for production, but compara-
tively few married women avail
themselves of the opportunity to
earn more income. For the
time being the business of run-
ning a home and a job is too
much strain for all but the hard-
iest.

First of all more houses are
During the two-year
plan, $280,000,000 will be spent
on rehousing 125,000 families,
25,000 of whom will live in com-
pletely new dwellings. The new
ones are most interesting be-
cause they show just what the
government thinks the workers
deserve.

The most advanced scheme is
developing now in Zlin, where
2,400 flats should be finished by
the end of 1948. Each flat will
include a large living room, two
or three bedrooms, a working
kitchen, bathroom and lavatory,
hall and store closet, and a lock-
up cellar in the basement. Rent
(including central heating and
constant hot water) will range
from $3.50 to $4 a week accord-

., ing to size.

The working kitchen will be
completely furnished with gas
stove, “English sink,” and drain-
ing board, saucepan cupboard
and pantry, food cupboard,
hinged .table, and a swing door
which one’s elbow can push in
either diection if one is carry-
ing dishes into the living room.
One feels that a woman had
something to do with this de-
sign.

* *

THERE HAS BEEN a good
deal of discussion about this
working kitchen.” The middle-
class woman now doing her own
work for perhaps the first time,
would like her family to eat in

the kitchen, which she feels can.

be made quite attractive with
enamelled table, stools and cabi-
net for’ stores. She wants to
save steps in serving and to

of the kitchen.

used.

But the planners who are most
concerned with raising the
workers’ standards say that they
must at all costs get them out
Too many fami-
lies have made the kitchen their
one room, where everyone work-
ed, played, ate, even slept. Only
if the kitchen is so small that
the housewife has just enough
room to do her job, will the
family understand that the liv-
ing room is at their service.

a Aiea VAN 3 3

QUITE CLEARLY, it will: be
only a short time now before
the conditions of homemaking
are so much improved that
}.omen will react quite different-

‘experiment is even being made
in community dwellings, where
several hundred families can
live, each family possessing two
or three private rooms, but
sharing kitchens, canteens, read-
ing rooms, playrooms, nurseries
and laundries,

Dr, Benes has told his people
that there is not really a wom-
en’s problem at all. In the last
analysis, women’s problems are
really human problems. With
beautiful homes in which they
can relax after their day’s work,
men, women and children of the
new Czechoslovakia will feel
that they are indeed owners of
the People’s Republic.

—FREDA COOK.

Pupils back teachers

Although most of the 65,000 Minneapolis school children were
on vacation when the American Federation of Teachers (AFL)
struck for higher wages, these two youngsters gave up their
free time to help their instructors—on the picket line. One of
their signs asks the pertinent question: “What about the younger

generation?”

TIPS FOR THRIFTY SHOPPERS

What to buy in ready-to-wear

IT IS UNFORTUNATE that
there is no workable standard,
grading or informative labelling
setup in most consumer goods
fields, Q

Ready to wear dresses are 2
fine example of this deficiency.
They constitute a jungle of pit-
falls for the inexperienced and
unwary shopper.

Quality is probably ‘easier to
spot in cotton than in most other
fabrics, but even so you must
choose with care. Under normal
circumstances you can tell by

“looking closely, and by touch, how

finely woven a fabric is. But when
large quantities of sizing are add-
ed to the material to conceal a
loose texture, materials little bet-
ter than cheesecloth are often
finished to pass for good quality
ginghams, percales or organdies.
After the first washing these dis-
guised fabrics revert to their nor-
mal state of limp rags.

Or the opposite condition may
be true. All cottons are stretched
somewhat in manufacture. Some,
however, are stretched excessive-
of over-stretch-

even on the first washing, that
they must be discarded.

Both these undesirable condi-
tions can be avoided with a little
effort and observation. Try rub-
bing a suspicious looking material
between your hands. N otice
whether little particles of white
dust come to the surface, and
whether the weave looks more
open where you rubbed. If that
is the case, you have been warned
of a heavily-sized material. As to
shrinkage, read the labels. at
there is no label, don’t buy. Un-
less the label of a cotton dress
gua \kntees it as fully pre-shrunk
(wil: not shrink more than one
percent) don’t take a chance. The
same labelling precautions apply
to color fastness, :

eke ca

WHILE WOOL fabrics now
used in ready-made dresses may
be different in weave and texture
from those found years ago,
identifying points of quality re-
main substantially the same.
Long, high-grade, undamaged fi-
pres spun and woven firmly are
still the hall mark of quality.

There are two main types of
wool dress material—worsteds
and woolens. True worsteds are
made of long, fine-quality combed
wool fibres. Good worsteds have
clear weaves and firm finishes;
the material wears well, keeps its
shape and does not hold wrinkles.
Typical worsteds are challis, gab-
ardine and crepe. :

Woolens are made of shorter
fibres, and the fabrics are gener-
ally heavier, coarser and warmer
than worsted

In washable woolen for sum-

*mer wear, wool mixed with cot-
ton or rayon can be more Satis-
factory than all wool. While pre-
serving the texture and appear-

ance of wool, the mixed materials —

are usually cooler, and they can
be washed with less danger of
shrinkage. ;
Any wool will continue to
shrink a bit with each steaming,
but like cotton, rayon and linen,
wool fabrics can now be pre-
shrunk to the extent that the fit
of the dress does not change
noticeably in usual dry-cleaning.

—JACK WINTER.

_THESE DAYS, it seems, even spring fever can be
politically induced, as though the first warm spring sun-
shine, the clean look of the mountains and the budding

peach trees were not enough.

But this spring austerity is

with us, and when you haven’t tasted a crisp- head of let-

luce or a ripe tomato for months
—-Hollywood films being more im-
portant than California fresh veg-
etables in Douglas Abbott's view
—there are some very practical
reasons for wanting to get out
into the garden.

Two weeks ago I had to be forc-
ibly prevented from planting
every seed we‘had bought and
was given the task of replanting
the flower border instead. But I
wasn’t the only one rushing the
season with thoughts of early
peas and radishes, for all up and
down the street our neighbors
were busy in their gardens, or at
least talking over their back
fences about how busy .they in-
tended to’ be. High prices of veg-
etables, Abbott's austerity pro-

‘gram and the’ best means of com-

batting blight, as well as the pe-
litical blighters, all got roundly
discussed. Which just goes to
show that the government is not
secure from subversion even in
the back yard.

No doubt the scarcity of fresh
vegetables has something to do
with this planting spree, although
there’s no shortage of frozen
vegetables if you can pay the
price. It’s not only the scarcity
but the thought of what fresh
vegetables will cost when they
are on the market that’s worry-
ing housewives. With the price
of potatoes and carrots boosted
because of the “higher cost of
storage space” the only way to
heat the prices racket is to get
out with the rest of us and dig
--if you’re lucky enough to have
a back yard to dig in, that is.

A LITTLE ITEM in the Van-
couver Sun last Saturday must be
worrying hundreds if not thou-
sands of tenants in Vancouver,
Victoria and other cities this
week. ©

R. F. Gallagher, president of
the Vancouyer Property Owner
Association, returned to the city
from Ottawa predicting that de-
control of house rentals might be
expected within the’ next few
days. Representatives of property
owners from a number of prov-
inces met with Finance Minister
-Douglas Abbott last week to press
for. decontrol and, according to
Gallagher, “Abbott has a clear
insight into the problem and
realizes that something must. be
done on behalf of the landlords.”

If you read the item, you prob-

s

°

oe

We Sell For Less

Army and Navy will never know-
ingly be undersold. We will meet
any competitor’s price at any time,
not pnly ceiling price but’ floor price,
and we will gladly refund any ‘differ-
ence, Army and Navy prices are

. guaranteed to be the lowest
couver at all times,

‘ MEPARTMENT STORES ues
Vancouver and New Westminster

nH)

his

is telling:‘em
i=" SYDNEY,

Australian unionists and
housewives. staged. a mammoth
demonstration here to protest
what they termed artificially
high prices, The demonstration
began with stoppages in work-
shops and on the waterfront
and ended with a rally before

"the price commission office here.

The New Housewives’ Associa-
tion initiated the protest meet-

"ing, which heard many speak-

ers point out that prices rises
are unjustified when industry’s
profits contimie to scar to new

ably said to yourself, as I did,
“It’s too bad Abbott couldn't see
the housewives’ problem in trying
to make both ends meet when
their representatives went to see
him.”

It's true that. here and there
rental control may be working
some hardship on retired people
dependent on the rents they get.
from one or two pieces of prop-
erty.’ But the ‘property owners
who went to Ottawa didn’t go to
plead the cause of the small land-
lords, although they used their
support. They went to argue for
the real estate companies—Gal-
lagher himself is a real estate
agent—the finance companies and
speculators who see. the oppor-
tunity to profit from the current
housing shortage slipping away as"
hard times approach. ;

But tenants won't be witho
their representatives to fight their
cause. I had a chat with Mrs.
Effie Jones this (week and she told
me that the Vancouver Civic Re-
form Association had already sent
a strongly worded wire of protest
to Ottawa demanding that rental
controls be retained. The Ten-
ants’ and Homeowners’ League
here is also preparing a protest,
I'm told, and I've no doubt that
tenants who find it harder all
the time to keep their present
rent money intact will be doing
some stiff protesting on their own
account.—B.G.

in Van-

ded

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 27, 1948—PAGE 11