ADDRESS BY MISS E. ZIMMERN

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25738, 25 February 1949, Page 2

ADDRESS BY MISS E. ZIMMERN

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN

Some interesting- details of the international work done by councils of women in Britain were given by Miss E. Zimmern, of London, a prominent worker in the interests of women and an international affairs when she addressed about 150 members of the Christchurch branch of the National Council of Women and their friends in the National Club rooms last evening. She said the National Council of Women, founded in 1888, was the second oldest women’s organisation in England. In 1925 it decided to form a liaison committee of women’s international organisations that could speak with one voice at the League of Nations. Fourteen big women’s international, organisations were represented and among them they covered all aspects of women’s work. The ’object was to see that women were appointed to committees and commissions formed by the League. Women were eligible for these appointments but progress was slow. “Custom is harder to overcome than legal difficulties,” said Miss Zimmern. Twenty-two nations did appoint women on the national assembly of the League of Nations and these women put forward to their countries’ delegations the point of view of women. Then, during the war, the National Council carried on its work in London. It arranged a series of monthly conferences to which it invited women of the nine nations whose governments were functioning in London and these conferences, with their exchange of ideas, were helpful. Late in the war it arranged training centres for women of Allied countries to help them to learn social welfare work, which they would teach in their own countries when they went home. The procedure of United Nations. Miss Zimmern said, differed from that of the League of Nations. It appointed to committees, not individuals, but governments who Appointed their representatives,’ and the meetings, instead of being held in Geneva, which was easily reached from England, were now held in different parts of the world, making it difficult and costly for women to attend. Non-govern-mental organisations had now been invited to co-operate and many had been granted consultative status. Among these was the Associated Countrywomen of the World, which had some opportunity of making heard the voice of women. Miss Zimmern urged members of the National Council of Women in New Zealand to take an interest in what was being done at the United Nations, to prepare relevant information about their own country, to observe what their own Government was doing, and to co-operate with the local United Nations Association. •

Miss Mary McLean (president of the Christchurch branch) presided at the meeting. Specially-invited guests included the Mayoress (Mrs F. Hardy Cookson), Mrs H. S. Feast, Miss B. Hearnden (London), and Miss C. Jefferson (Dunedin).