TRAVELLER'S TALES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 5, 6 July 1939, Page 18

TRAVELLER'S TALES

ADDRESS TO COLLEGE GIRLS

Yesterday morning Miss F. E. Kershaw, who is a former teacher of the Wellington Girls' College, and a keen supporter of the Youth Movement, paid a visit to the school. Miss Kershaw spoke on her . recent : visit to Europe and of the attitude of the countries which were directly concerned in the crisis of last September.

The party with which Miss Kershaw travelled across the Continent reached Austria in August, five months after Hitler's coup d'etat. There they found that German influence was already apparent in", the suppression of all national activities, in the ariti-Jewish posters, and in the use of German stamps, coins, and: place names. * All- nationalistic meetings and patriotic,sentiments were viewed with suspicion, and the once gay Vienna was a drab, . badly-lit shadow of the former glorious city. Miss Kershaw; expressed great admiration for the courage of the CzechoSlovakian people during the bitter months of 1938. They had put their trust in the British and French Governments, and were stunned when news came that Mr. Chamberlain had destroyed the bastions that stood between them and Hitler.

The Hungarians she found to be delightful people. They were hospitable and pleasure-loving, and all worked for the day when their lands, lost to them by the Treaty of Trianon; would be returned, and when they would have a king again on tne throne of Hungary. "In both Hungary and Rumania the difficulties of the position are aggravated by a minority problem," the j speaker said, "and in Rumania ther& j is, too, a severe religious persecution against those people who are opposed to the orthodox religion." In closing, Miss" Kershaw impressed upon the girls the need to forget New Zealand's insular position and to offer friendship to the numberless unfortunate refugees now entering the country. Varied and interesting lantern slides to illustrate her address, were used by the speaker.