RED CROSS WORK

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 8, 9 January 1920, Page 8

RED CROSS WORK

AN INTERNATIONAL CONTENTION.

Mr. Bernard Tripp, of Tima.ru, and a brother of Mr. L. 0. H. Tripp, Italian Consul, of Wellington, leaves to-morrow by the Arawa as one of the New Zealand delegates to the International Red Cross Conference to be held at Geneva, Switzerland. The chief object of "the conference is to so alter the constifcu.tion of the Red Cross that its activities may be as valuable to humanity in times of peace as they were during the horrible period of the war. "What we aim at," said Mr. Tripp, in conversation with a Post reporter, "is the general welfare of ■humanity, and every nation in the world has been asked to send a representative to enable the society to decide how that can best be done." ■ Geneva has been specially chosen a 6 the city in which the conference shall be held because it lias all along been closely associated with the work of the lied Cross. In June, 1859, Jean Henry Dunanfc, a philanthropic citizen o£ Geneva, was present at the Battle of Solferino, and later advocated an international convention to provide for the aiding of the wounded in war. That convention took place at Geneva, and was signed on 22nd August,, 1864. It neutralised the surgical corps of hostile armies and volunteer societies caring for the wounded, and, as a compliment to Switzerland, the Swiss flag in reversed colours—a red cross on a whits field — was adopted as the badge of the society. The "Alabama Room" in l\e City Hall was the .scene of the First International Convention, and contains a marble tablet with the following inscription:—"ln this room, on 22nd August, 1864, -was concluded and signed the Geneva Convention for the betterment of the lot of wounded soldiers or armies in the field."