WOMEN PIONEERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 243, 15 October 1931, Page 13

WOMEN PIONEERS.

/'The influence exerted by the iromen pioneers of New Zealand casts upon the women of to-day the responsibility to carry on the tradition that lias been laid down," said Miss Ellen Melville at the annual meeting of the Old Thames Girls' Association yesterday. Miss Melville's address was on "Women's Share! in the Making of a Nation/' and she prefaced her remarks by saying that it was, perhaps, presumption to speak to such a gathering of women who had played such an important' part in the making of New Zealand, after they had done pioneer work on the goldfiefds of long ago. In speaking of New Zealand's! position as a nation, she said that " the world, did not know much about the country until New Zealanders went to. the war-, and it was when New Zealand signed the Peace Treaty as a, grown-up country that it then became a responsible one. This part of the world was' going to be an important one in the coming years, and one of our great responsibilities was to represent' the British to the people in the East. Miss Melville spoke of the women who attended the Pan-Pacific Conference, and how they represented the British nation to the Eastern women. If the women of. the country were right, the country : was right- If the womanly standards and outlook were wrong, there was little hope for the country. They should be self-reliant. The old pioneers were not spoon-fed, which term was often applied to New Zealanders to-day, and the speaker •suggested to those present that the only way pioneers could help was to keep the traditions alive in the minds of their grandchildren, and thus inculcate a spirit of national life. Miss Melville then went on to speak of the pioneering work the women of to-day were doing in contrast to the pioneering work done when the term meant more or less physical labour in the backblocks. To-day women pioneers were educating and broadening the outlook of women as citizens.