WOMEN DELEGATES AT GENEVA

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 18

WOMEN DELEGATES AT GENEVA

THEIR PLACE IN THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Each delegation to the League of Nations consists of three chief delegates with one or more deputy delegates. Women have sat as deputy delegates; and seven of them were appointed by their respective Governments this year, together with a few other women who acted as technical advisers (writes Dorothea Price Hughes, in “The Queen’”). From early morning until late at night women delegates are hard at work. They have barely replied to the most urgent of their letters when they are summoned to a private meeting of their delegation at the hotel.• Then visitors begin to arrive—representatives of women’s associations or of international societies meeting at Geneva, and correspondents to. the Press, whose pertinacity is a compliment, but difficult to satisfy. About 10.15 delegates manage to escape these attentions, and armed with big dispatch cases, they walk or motor to the Salle de la Reformation, where the Assembly meets. Tall Genevese guards protect them from the cordon of sightseers and photographers who gather around the entrance. The" latter have a grievance against the women delegates. Men are willing to be taken, but these modest women evade all their efforts. . If the Salle were only better ventilated, cleaner and less noisy, the sessions might provide a period of repose.-As it is, delegates manage to read letters and newspapers during some of the speeches, which are made twice, in French and English, and are read as a rule from typewritten manuscripts. During certain speeches, of course, nobody dreams of attending to private business, as, for instance, when Herr Muller is thundering from the tribune, demanding progressive disarmament, or when M. Briand, speaking without a note, is replying to him as only M. Briand can. In the afternoon the Assembly sits 'again or there is a commission at the Secretariat, .; which entails a preparatory study of certain documenta in the dispatch case. 'At ; 6.30 women delegates disperse to their hotels, :and have just time to dress for the dinner that is being .given, in their honour, but also for the delectation of guests who wish to hear them speak. . When at last they gain'the privacy of their rooms, there are. fresh letters to answer and another pila of papers which must at least be glanced at, or they will be unprepared for the meeting of their delegation''the- next, morning—or, worse still the. inquiries of friends'at home. So theirlife is Very strenuous, but they all appear 'to enjoy it. It is not only the breezek--blowing from the lake which exhilarate each delegate, but the consciousness that she represents her country, particularly its'women, who depend on her for the expression of their views and aspirations. . . , , In common,, too, with her men colleagues,"she realises that they are sharing in a'new political.experiment, such as the world has never seen, and as yet only half understands. This Assembly of 51 national representatives (four were absent this:year) is not a rigid, formal affair.'' Its-.procedure and constitution are developing before their eyes. The meeting of foreign ministers at the hotel opposite may spring a surprise any moment, and the word of another delegate may throw light on a problem that has hitherto seemed insoluble. So the spirit buoys up the tired body. The doyenne among her women colleagues is Mlle. Forchammer, of Denmark. She has attended the Assembly since its opening. She was the first woman to address it, which she did as a duty, in order to propose an inquiry into the vjiite slave traffic. One of the delegates sent her a note of congratulation when she had finished, saying that he wished the—words rf other speakers were as brief and to the point. This year she was elected vice-president of the commission which- deals with that traffic. A teacher by profession and noted for her methods

of teaching English and Danish, she has been president of the Women’s National Council in Dinmark since 1913. She speaks German and, like all educat ed Scandinavians, understands the tongues of other Scandinavians, as well as French. It would be bard to surpass Mlle. Forchammer in her knowledge of committee work and sure instinct for guiding its procedure and decisions. However highly the reformer s zeal may burn within her breast, it never consumes that cool judgment or the perception of what is actually practicable. , , Mlle. Helene Vacaresco, who speaks five languages in addition to her own (French, German, English, Italian, and Spanish), has represented-Rumania since 1921. A daughter of the late Rumanian Minister to Rome and Brussels, she was in her youth lady-in-waiting to Carmen Sylva, whose love of literature she shared. Like her queen, she wrote poetry, and her collection of Rumanian folk songs, “The Bard of the Dimbovitva,” has been translated. in many languages. She is still a. p.oet at heart, though her aspiration is expressed in practical public service. Dame Edith Lyttelton has been appointed to the British Delegation by the Conservative Government for the. fourth time. She wields the potent influence of a very human and noble personality. She has drunk deeply of a woman’s joys and sorrows, and sympathised with people in many walks of life. She is a Justice of the Peace at Westminster, a governor of the Old Vie. Theatre, and a student of industrial problems, and has studied on certain committees. Her enthusiasm for the British Commonwealth of Nations has been intensified by travel, and ■ in various ways she has made human contacts,” as the Americans express it, between ourselves and the United btates. On a commission she impresses an observer by her alertness and social tact, that fine perception of other people s sensibilities which distinguishes a true grande dame. Equally remarkable is the frank and fearless manner in which she expresses her convictions when she feels it necessary to do so—-as, for instance, when the delegate for France criticised the grounds on which the experts in their report had condemned the system of licensed houses. Every woman present felt grateful, to her. Mme. Hainan is included in the Finnish delegation for the second time and has been elected rapporteur of the Tratfie in Women and Children Committee. For the last fourteen years she has been president of the National Council of Women in Finland and has made . a special study of police methods, serving for a short time as a policewoman Dr. Aus is a delegate of Norway for the first time and produces a most favourable impression by her gracious personality. She and her husband work together as medical practitioners amid the working-class population of irondhvem and serve on municipal committees. A short speech that she made in the Fifth Commission when the conclusions of the. experts with regard to venereal disease were being disputed was the more effective because it was based on her experience as a doctor. Mrs. Carlile McDonnel, another delegate for the first time, is a worthy representative of , Australia. After being trained as a teacher at Ambleside under the direction of Charlotte Mason, she took up nursing at the London Hospital and then social work at a church in the East End. Sixteen years ago she went to Australia, with which she has become closely identified by her prominent connection with women’s societies and the League of Nations Union. As a Magistrate in Adelaide she has borne witness to the great value of women police in South Australia, and gave an account of their work to the assembly. The Countess Apponyi, wife of the

veteran Count Apponyi, the effective defender of the Hungarian optants, has accompanied her husband tor the first time as a delegate. She is president of the National Council of Women in Hungary and a pioneer in womens movements in that country.

No account of women delegates would be complete without special reference to the work of the Fifth Commission, where they all serve, along with certain other women. These include Frau Lang-Bru-maii, member of the Reichstag and technical adviser to the German Delegation, and Dame Rachel Crowdy, who is in charge of the Social Section of the Secretariat and therefore mainly responsible for preparing the work of the Fifth Commission and carrying out its decisions. Chief among these has been the recent publication of Part II of the Experts’ Report on the Traffic in Women and Children which has convinced Governments of the existence of so infamous a trade and led them to take measures to suppress it. Much still remains to be done, but the work that Josephine Butler began is proceeding along the road that she desired. The commission has decided to extend its investigations, and their unanimous opinion was expressed by Lord Cushendun' in the assembly, when he urged Governments to inflict heavier penalties on agents of the trade, “who are a curse to mankind.” He also recommended an extension of the work of women police, and thereby reinforced the plea of women delegates, who have been maintaining that properly trained policewomen are invaluable in preventing the trade and protecting young people m great cities. The Fifth Commission is likewise concerned with the welfare of children who are in special need of protection, and strong resolutions have been passed urging Governments to appoint censors of films shown to children, and women members have suggested that women ought to be represented in the International Kinematographic Institute which the Italian Government is setting up at Rome, under the direction of the league.