WOMEN AND WORLD PEACE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 152, 24 March 1938, Page 5

WOMEN AND WORLD PEACE

Conference And Anniversary Celebrations Of International Council To Be Held In July 'J’HE first news about the 50th Anniversary celebrations and conference which the International Council of Women will hold in Edinburgh in July has been received from “The Dominion’s-” London correspondent. Representatives from New Zealand are expected. Delegates from all parts of the world will attend the celebration, and accommodation has already been booked for more than 2000. The movement claims to represent about 40,000,000 women in 27 different countries.

London, March 5. the foreign delegates will be Frau Berta Pipin, the only woman Member of Parliament in Latvia: Frau Betzy Kjelsberg, Norway’s first woman factory inspector; Contessa Daisy de Robllant, President of the National Council of Woman in Italy and Dr. Maria Castellani, organiser of women’s broadcasts from Italy to foreign countries. Resolutions upon all kinds of subjects have been sent in for the conference from the different countries, according to the organising committee. There are resolutions from Great Britain, France, Austria. America and Belgium, urging the affiliated councils of each nation to work for peace: for the reduction of armaments; and to restore confidence in the League of Nations.

Austria urges that schools should be compelled to provide teaching on economic principles and on the idea of the inter-dependence of nations. France has sent a resolution advocating the greater use of women broadcasters.

There will certainly be representatives from India, South Africa and Canada, and from New Zealand and Australia, although details of the delegates are not yet known. A great many social functions are being organised, and a special effort is being made to ensure that every foreign visitor should see the inside of at least one Scottish home. The Lord Provost is entertaining the delegates at a municipal reception, and there will be an “over the border” luncheon from which, save for the speaker, all Scottish delegates will be excluded. An interesting function will be a garden party given at the Edinburgh Zoo, which will be closed to the general public on that evening. On another evening, when the foreign visitors will be the guests of the National Council of Women of Great Britain, the delegates will all be asked to wear their national costumes. Distinguished visitors. TjELEGATES who have promised to attend the conference include some of the most distinguished women iu Europe. First on the list is Ishbel, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, who was president of the International Council of Women for 36 years, is now honorary president, and who was one of the council delegates who were presented to Queen Victoria 50 years ago. It is out of compliment to Lady Aberdeen and as a tribute to her absorbing interest in all matters connected with peace that the conference will open with a discussion on peace. Baroness Pol Boel was introduced to members of the International Council as their new president at a conference last year. She is a woman of great eharm and distinction. Apart from her work as a feminist, people remember her as a heroine of the war.

She organised a secret line of communication between the men at the front and - their families in Belgium. At the court-martial which followed her discovery, she refused legal aid and conducted her own defence winning the

admiration of her German judges. Lady Ruth Balfour, president of the National Council of Women of Great Britain, is the daughter of the present Earl of Balfour, and niece of the famous “A. J.” Balfour.

She married a first cousin, Colonel Edward Balfour, of the Guards, and they live at Balburnie, about thirty miles from Edinburgh. They have four children. The elder daughter is married, two boys are at Eton, and the younger girl is at St. Leonard’s school

at St. Andrew’s, which was where Princess Elizabeth was to have been sent if her father hadn’t become King of England. Interested in public health and nutrition, Lady Ruth has a foundation for her work through her work at the London Royal Free Hospital, where she took her degree as M.B. and B.Sc. Afterwards she became assistant anaesthetist there. Later she did biochemistry research at the Lister Institute, and at the Institute for Medical Research at Hampstead.

Madame Plaminkova and Frau Berta Pipin, as vice-presidents, are both to attend. Mme. Plaminkova is a member of the Czechoslovakian Senate; Frau Pipin is the only woman member of Parliament in Latvia.