PENWOMEN'S CLUB.

Auckland Star, 2 September 1933, Page 15

PENWOMEN'S CLUB.

•The Great Adventure" was the subject of a vivid talk given by Mrs. Kenneth Gordon to the members of the Penwomen'e Club on Friday afternoon. The speaker described her experiences during the WorIS War, and took her audience to the hospitals in Cairo, the prison camps in England, the busy offices of the censor bureau, and home to New Zealand in a captured German gunboat. Travelling to Egypt at the close of 1915, Mre. Kenneth Gordon found her first war work at Cairo, where she mended clothes for the wounded soldiers in the military hospital. Later in England she was successful, after a gruelling examination, in obtaining a position in the censorship department of the War Office, where she examined the letters of German prisoners in England. In the opinion of the speaker, it was impossible to maintain racial hatred in the face of the common emotion, anxiety and sympathy shown in the correspondence of the Germans. It became evident to her that all combatants were equally sure of the justice of their cause, and the certainty of its_ being victorious. She spoke of the dissatisfaction shown by certain sections of the British public at the good food given to the German officers at Donnington Hall, and also at the issue of the "Daily Mail" to all war prisoners, but mentioned that the Germans paid for the food themselves, and eaid that the "Daily Mail" wae good propaganda. It had been said that British propaganda did more to win the war than all the fighting. Mrs. Kenneth Gordon gave a graphic description of the horrors of March, 191S, when the German letters were full of confidence and Paris was being bombarded. In conclusion, the speaker pleaded with her audience to bring to the cause of peace the efficiency and enthusiasm which all women so willingly gave to the cause of war. "The world," she eaid, "would be a better place if its women were more in the forefront of life." Mrs. Carr-Rollett presided. Miss Kathleen Tcape recited "The Road of Ten Thousand Crosses."