A NATIONAL MEMORIAL

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 79, 27 December 1928, Page 6

A NATIONAL MEMORIAL

—* .... TO JOSEPHINE BUTLER. Under date London, November 15, the Baroness Ravensdale writes: "Lord Astor and 1 would be deeply grateful if you could publish the enclosed letter signed by the heads of churches of every denomination—Lady Fitz Alan representing the Roman Catholies —and signed also by the Duke of Sutherland, the Marquis and Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, the Home Secretary, the Earl of Clarendon, the Viscountess Rhondda, the Right Hon. T. It. Ferens, P.C., and myself. As the support is so universal for the national memorial to Josephine Butler it should be of interest all over the world.” The letter referred to reads: — All great nations honour their great citizens. This year there is a special opportunity open 1o us to pay our homage to one of the very noble figures that were the glory of the Victorian age— Josephine Butler, that lovely, cultured and talented Englishwoman who abandoned the leisure and ease of a happy and prosperous married life to give herself to the most heartbreaking crusade that ever enlisted gallant warrior. There was no advantage to be reaped. There was no glory to be won. She fought for the hopeless, the helpless, the homeless, the outcasts, the despised. She broke ground hitherto shunned and banned, and she won the meed of the reformer —obloquy. She was bespattered with abuse. She says of herself that her soul “went down into hell and dwelt there.” But her brave heart never quailed and she triumphed. Josephine Butler’s inspiration was righteousness. She fought and suffered that justice might be done even to the least and the worst. She fought and suffered that “Human society shall have within it no human dregs.” She fought and suffered that it should be recognised “the essence of right and wrong is in no way dependent on sex.” And she triumphed. She swept from the law of our land the blots that defamed it, and lit a great light which is now beginning to shine through all lands. Fiftysix Governments associated in the League of Nations have this year put th4ir seals to a document which is a lasting monument to the faith and the courage and the love of humanity which inspired her gallant career. Though this is the year of her centenary, her outlook is even now ahead of our time. Public opinion has still to be educated to the point that there can be but one moral standard for men and women, and that this standard must be voluntarily kept for the moral as well as the physical well-being of the community. Our hospitals, our asylums, our institutions for the blind and maimed show the tragic effects of the wrongdoing which is so damaging to our national life. Courage and vigilance are as needed to-day as in her time, for work that is still shunned and banned. The Association for Moral and Social Hygiene founded by Josephine Butler in 1870 does research work in the way of collecting and publishing statistics and watching legislation with regard to moral questions all over the world, and the Josephine Butler Memorial House trains university women on Josephine Butler’s lines. May we beg all those who wish to honour Josephine Butler’s memory to help us to place her work on a sure foundation? We propose to commemorate” her centenary —in gratitude that her great record is ours —by raising £40.000 as a national memorial to endow the two societies that are carrying on her great work.

Will you help us? . The appeal secretary is Miss Adeline Bourne, Ca Blomfield Rond. London.