WIVES OF THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

WIVES OF THE WORLD.

WRITE FOR PEACE.

The shadows of "one million women with their baskets," the wives of the world, lay across Westminster Hall, London, recently. They wore every national costume of Europe, they spoke its languages. They were the background for two thousand delegates who attended tlic three-day jubilee conference of the Women's International Co-operative Guild. People are apt to think of the Women's Co-operative Guild as concerned chiefly with prices in the co-operative stores. But these women were trying to ho a parliament of housewives, discussing questions of peace, unemployment, marriage law reform, and slums. One of the best examples was, perhaps, Madame Heymann-Coulon, of Belgium. She was Hearing forty, strong and capable looking. "I am nothing much," she said, when asked what she did. "I am only a hausfrau. I stay at home and look after my family. But lam interested in the cause of peace." Many women of the guild will become conscientious objectors in the next war if their plans materialise. Cards are to be issued to members, and they will be invited to sign a pledge themselves to do nothing to help in any capacity in war. This would mean they would work neither in munition factories nor in Bed Cross hospitals. Another visitor to the conference was Frau Emmy Freundlich, a member of Parliament for Austria, a friend of Dr. Dollfuss,-.. and who had attended the Economic Council of the League of Nations. She can speak with equal ease in half a dozen languages. Standing near her was Senorita Victoria Kent, a member of Parliament from Spain, of Irish-English ancestry. She was the first woman at the Spanish Bar, and for a time was acting-governor of all Spanish prisons. "Yes," she said. "I tried to stop flogging, which was actually against the law, but which was prevalent." But the authorities decided that she upset prison discipline, so she resigned.