Channel Islands News and Views, May, 1948

From our newspaper collection. The Channel Islands News and Views, Vol. 2, no. 5, May 1948. Published by the Jersey and Guernsey Branches of the Communist Party, 30 Hue Street, Jersey and 6, Burnt Lane, Guernsey, and printed by Dorchester and District Newspapers Ltd. Joint editors: N S Le Brocq, 30 Hue Street, Jersey, and R G Hale, 6, Burnt Lane, Guernsey. Price: 2d. This number is the only example in our collection. Owing to its fragility, a scanned copy is available in the Library's Newspaper files. Any information about this publication would be most welcome. Here: A call for working-class women to stand for deputy in the island elections.

Wake up, Guernsey housewives!

By ROBERT G HALE

A poet once wrote, 'The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world,' a statement that emphasises the important influence of women on the affairs of men and the State.

Even in the dim twilight of the days when man shaped rude implements of stone, we may suppose that it was woman who made the cave more comfortable for habitation and whose voice, in the absence of her partner, largely controlled the social life of the community., who urged the tribe to action, or expermineted in the cultivation of the wild plants that assisted to eke out a precarious existence.

Almost every race has preserved legends of an age when women were the dominant force. [Discussions follow of feet binding in China, where women 'have up till quite recent times played an important part in that country's political development towards democracy'and Queen Elizabeth I.]

Prejudice

But throughout recent ages, women have had to fight hard against men's prejudice. It is only recently that, after a struggle even more protracted than the first Reform Bill, she obtained the vote in Britain and in these islands.

Evenb today the cry 'woman's place is in the home' has not completely died.

There has, it is true, been a somewhat belated call for Guernsey to have more women deputies and even more women jurats and conseillers, and it is time that this came about.

If our deputies are to represent truly the people of Guernsey there should be more or less equal number of men and women in the States.

But if these women are to represent the people of Guernsey, they must include women of the working class. We do not want women drawn from the ranks of vested interest. We do not want women who have an income of £10 or more dictating to the working class wife how to spend her £4.

We want to see working-class housewives in the States. Women who know what that extra penny or two first on one article, then another, means to the housewife's budget. Women who know what short ti[me for?] illness means to the weekly [pay] envelope and their budget.

Do not run away with the idea that an education at the Ladies' College is a necesssary qualification for a deputy.

Remember that 'hunger sharpens the wits,' and the struggle to make ends meet is a far better education for dealing with such questions as rising prices and low wages than a knowledge of the higher mathematics.

Moreover, do not run away with the idea that you cannot find such people among your friends and neighbours. Look around and you will find such women. When the time comes, nominate and vote for them.

Guernsey States and you!

At the beginning of April, the subject of revising the price of milk again came before the Guernsey States. Two members were then in favour of increasing the price to YOU so as to give the retailers more profit.

You can watch the views of these supposed representatives of your interests in the local papers. Remember them when election time comes. Do not forget that you then choose the members whose policy will determine how far your wages and housekeeping money will go.

And another point to remember at election time: it was recently proposed to erect an estate of workers' houses at Les Huriaux, St Andrew. The agricultural and business members of the Assembly made a terrible clamour. 'We must not use good agricultural land!' And so the idea was squashed.

Within a few months, two bungalows had been erected in the same district, using the 'valuable agricutural land.' Evidently it is all right for private business men to use the land and charge exorbitant prices for the houses they build on it, but not for the States to pay a fair price for it and build homes for workers.

T U Joe.