ROUND TABLE CLUB

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 73, 23 September 1938, Page 14

ROUND TABLE CLUB

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

The Business and Professional Women's Round Table Club held a luncheon party at the Y.W.C.A. recently, when the speaker was Mrs. Stewart, Labour candidate for Wellington West. Miss Toulson (president) presided. The guests included Mrs. Gardner (president of the board of directors), Miss Mary Seaton, and Miss Fitzgerald, of Palmerston North.

Mrs. Stewart outlined the women's suffrage movement, and said she felt that the emancipation. of women was only in its infancy. Women had, it was true, broken into the ranks of many of the professions and industries, but that was only a small part of all that women could do. Mrs. Stewart paid a tribute to business and professional women, but said that she felt that.it was the woman in the home who, in these days of labour-saving devices and small families, had the time to take a wider and more intelligent interest m the affairs of their country and of the world. It was not right that a woman should think that when she had brought up her family she had done enough. The bringing up of a family was not just a duty; it was the privilege and joy of a mother—not just a task. Many women, when the years of mothering were past, were still m the prime of life, and could do splendid work in the interests of a better national life. The power of women, in ! questions such as world peace and education, was almost without limit. Women could, if they would, change: the trend of national character towards the things of peace and of the spirit if they would individually create this attitude in their own home and civic life. ' Mrs. Stewart appealed to women to realise that there must be greater cooperation between men and women. They must not say, "This is a man's point of view" and "that a woman's point of view," but must think of .the point of view of both. The realisation of this attitude of co-operation was essential. Woman's influence could do much to educate the man's point of view to a greater appreciation of the fact that both men and women must strive for the well-being of all. A vote of thanks to Mrs. Stewart was proposed by Miss Toomath and carried by acclamation.