LEAGUE OF PENWOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 71, 24 March 1928, Page 17

LEAGUE OF PENWOMEN.

There was a record attendance of members at the gathering held by the New Zealand League of Penwomen yesterday afternoon,- which was specially called to extend hospitality to Mr. and Mrs. W. Moore, of Sydney. Mrs. Moore, better known as Dora Wilcox, the writer and poet, is president of the Sydney Women Writers' Club. Other guests of the league who were present were: Mrs. C. Daly (Edith Harrhy, composer of songs), Mrs. Edith Grace Barton, of Tauranga, and Mr. John Barr. Mrs. Stuart Boyd, the president, welcomed the guests, and said how de» lighted she was to meet them. In reply, Mrs. Moore extended an invitation to any member of the league to visit the women writers of New South Wales, should they ever be in Sydney. She expressed her great pleasure at being back again in her native country. Mrs. Moore spoke in eulogistic terms of New Zealand as a country for inspiring art. It was such a beautiful country. Nature had endowed it with her greatest gifts. The only thing that affected it seriously was its distance from other countries. •There was no contact with Other races which would broaden the viewpoint and to develop genwia. Xet even in this

tunate as it might be. It had in its midst a race of people full of poetry, music and legends, namely, the Maoris, whose unique gifts led to the development of New Zealand genius. Mrs. Moore said how pleased she was to find that the young people of the country had such a decided interest in arfc and literature, and commended the number of small literary clubs that she had noticed existed. "One thinks of countries by the beauty which they are able to create," she said, "and I feel that New Zealand will be a great country by terms of creative genius." In a short address on the development of art in all its branches, Mr. William Moore, who is an art critic in Sydney, deplored the fact that literature is so little encouraged. "One hears of large sums of money being given for galleries, but one seldom hears of even a hundred pounds being offered as a prize for poetry." Mr. Moore also said that in official handbooks he had noticed that there was a great deal said about the fishing in New Zealand, its scenic beauty and its sports, but he had never seen anything that told of New Zealanders' successes in the field of art. He had never seen anything that told him about the New Zealand Nobel Prize winner; about David Low, the famous cartoonist; or Reginald Berkely, the New Zealand dramatist who has had such a big success in London. "For a truly national art," he said, "the artists must get out back and study the life and conditions of the country. They must work and live among the people to realise their spirit. During the afternoon songs were sung by Miss Etta Field, Mrs. Isobel Langlands Greenfield gave a violin solo, and Mrs. Daly sang a number of her little songs that she had written for her little daughter. Tea was served, during which the members of the league had the opportunity of meeting the visitors.