PARLIAMENT OF WOMEN.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17608, 10 November 1922, Page 9

PARLIAMENT OF WOMEN.

THE SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE. WOMAN'S LIBERTY. (FKOM OUR OWN CORRESrOXDKNT.) LONDON, November 29. Over 700 delegates, representing branches of the National Council of Women of Great Britain and Ireland, and the affiliated societies, are met at Cambridge in annual conference. All shades of thought are represented, and eminent women there include Miss Maude Hoyden, Lady Trust ram Eve, Mrs Ogilvio Gordon, Miss Ellis Hopkins (.the founder of tho movement, who was born in Cambridge), and Miss Cecile Matheson. In an address full of wisdom, Lady Frances Baliour (.who presided at the opening) sketched tho progress that had been made and tho work that yet remained to be done. "We greet tho future with a cheer," she said, in making an appeal for further service, "and look back at the barriers surmounted and feel sure that those t>efore us aro very smaii objectives to Lo captured." .Last year the Parliament of Women had met at Sheffield, and, referring to the steel city as compared with the seat of learning, Lady Frances said they were now gathered in tho workshop and forge of the mind; no steam hammer broke the repose of the ancient town, and they could give their minds to problems of education, and survey tho progress of learning more notaoly among women. This progress had been continuous, begun long before armaments were dreamed of, and it would continue long after the world had learned, in the light of reason, to think not in iron and steel, but in terms which made for the brotherhood of the world as taught and practised by such Christian universities. Cambridge must ever be a place of interest to women, and although preconceived ideas and prejudices had been slow to die, they looked forward with confidence to tho day when Cambridge would open its gates to women, even as her sister university had done, and women would be granted the degrees they had won. Looking round they could see many signs of enlightened progress—women entering every profession, overcoming all obstacles, and appearing modestly first in so many lists. (Laughter.) The Spirit of Enterprise. "Whenever I take up my paper I see the unexpected in women, ' proceeded the president. "The Everest' Expedition did not 6eem one whore women would be singing 'Excelsior 1' Reading the great achievements of that mighty ascent, without a thought other than admiration for the lion who overcame, 10, I came on an account of the great deeds performed by the porters. There singled out was the. prowess of a Tibetan woman who carried a tent (in which all the men lived), weighing 1601b, and plunged with it through the long, snowy passes with the best of them. (Laughter.) First in butter-making, first in breeding dogs, first in sheep trials, first in breeding calves and hacks, first in allotment cul- , tivation. /Dare I mention another unexpected place where a woman's name appeared as a winner of the Calcutta Sweep stake? (Laughter.) Whatever we may think of gambling, we cannot help seeing in this the spirit of adventure and enterprise. (Laugnter.) Florence Nightingale 6aw the absurdity of separating the sexes in public work. "I think it is a pity," she wrote, "that women should look upon themselves (as men look upon them) as a great curiosity—a peculiar, strange race, like the Aztecs, or, rather, like Dr. Home's idiots, whom, after the unremitting exertions of two years, he actually taugut to eat with a spoon." (Laughter.) That phase had not entirely passed, but it was passing. They saw it passing in the accounts of juries, of whom so vennv were women; of electors of whom bo many were women; of members of Parliament, of whom owo were «\'.unen. (Cheers.) More than sixty }'oai3 ago Richard Cobden, writing as :he dawn was breaking for women, said: 'My <lietrme is that in proportion as. physical force declines in the world and moral power aco.uires «he ascendant, wo.v.en will gain in the scaie. The Quakers have acted Christianity, and their women have approached nearer to an equality with" the other sex l ban any of the descend'ants of Eve. F am ;ilways labouring to put down physical force and substitute somethirg better; and therefore I consider Eiy&elf a fellowlabourer with your da ighter in the cause of women's rights. And yet, strange to say, women are the greatest favourers of soldiering and sailoring and all that appoitairs tu war.' Not so unlike their :onna.ue man, alter a,'l! Cobden further said, 'Christianity, in its doctrines, though not yet coming up to its own standard in its practice, did more than anything since the world began to elevate woman.' "In that (continued Lady. Frances) lies tho greatest hope of our future. It is the sheet-ancuor or tlit cause of women; it is the charter of our glorious liberty and freedom. V<id w/u!e wo hold to that faith, and while we practise it, while we grip it fast, then wt- I'U.y humbly hope that our work may revivify life in this complex world. The freedom of women ma.' he a low thought, but it is incorporated in our religion. Let us walk patiently in the new way, lighted by the Light of the World, and look out on-the woild, yet weltering in blood and darkenings at noonday. As we see the world at warfare, as we watch the slow oncoming of the thought of peace, surely we may feel we have been called in a great and solemn hour. The most conservative thing in the world is the mind of fhe natural man. (Laughter.) The Near East Question. The crisis of the Near East was made the subject of an urgency resolution, which received the unanimous assent of the council. It reads: "That this council, believing that the settlement of the Near East is a matter of worfd wide importance, welcomes the decision of the Allied Governments that the neutrality of the Straits shall be under the guardianship of the League of Nations, and calls upon the British Government to do all that is possible to secure that the machinery of the League is utilised in the settlement of the present dispute." Mrs Oliver Strachey, in moving it, commented on the fact that that was the first occasion, since the admission of women to full citizenship, that they had been threatened with a war, and) that women were called upon to say whether they considered that national disputes should be referred in a living manner to the League of Nations. Important as the neutrality of the Straito, or the allocation of Thrace might be, they were doubly important by reason of the fact that they were the testing point upon which the League's machinery was to be used. viousiy it was most important that the League should prove itself an efficient machine through which all troubles would find their solution, and it was very urgent to say to the Government that they should take every opportunity to bring the League into the settlement of the present dispute, and should show their determination to make tho League a reality. Mrs Edwin Gray, in seconding, said

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the earnest desire of »fl women was that the grave international crisis might be solved by conference rathor than by force of arms which could be no settlement at all. The contention of Mrs G. Cadbury was that a general policy of disarmament would be utterly useless unless the causes of war were removed. Peace, after all, was a moral conception, ana 60 long as nations remained unreformcd morally, so long would there be war and Human eafivflng.