Y.W.C.A. WORK

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 245, 17 October 1933, Page 11

Y.W.C.A. WORK

I An intercessory service for the success of the World Disarmament Conference in I Geneva this week was held at the Y.W.C.A. on .Sunday afternoon. Similar i services were being held in many counI tries throughout the world. Club members presented a short peace celebration in which The Prophet, The Sage, The Church and Youth, denounced the primitive barbarism of war and proclaimed the way of world fellowship and Christian brotherly love as the only means of everlasting peace. Miss A. M. Bentham, general secretary, Auckland, gave a short talk, stating that the first conference held in 19.'52 had not completely failed, I but had prepared a draft to be submitted at a future sitting, and had certainly arrived at a more sympathetic international understanding of the difficulties of individual nations. Our part to-day, she said, was to counteract pessimism as to the powers of the conference to effect disarmament, and thus give it courage and strength to continm in it'rs endeavours, and to encourage '"moral disarmament," a disarmament of the spirit ! which would eliminate hate and fear from the mind-; of peoples. A letter from Mr. Arthur, Henderson, chairman of the acneva Conference, to Miss Dingman, chairman of the Women's Disarmament Committee in Geneva, was read, in which he urged the women to continue in their efforts to foster the desire for world peace and help build a national attitude of mind towards it. The following , six points of the Disarmament Conference programme were read: Abolition by every country within a limited period of all weapons (including military aeroplane*) forbidden to Germany; no rearmament by any country: increase of security by realTirmation of the principle of the strength of all for the defence of each; limitation of expenditure on armaments; effective international supervision, of (a) existing armaments, (b) manufacture of and trade in arms, (c) civil aviation; economic sanctions against any State failing to carry out its obligation to reduce or limit armaments.