ABANDONMENT URGED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20257, 27 May 1940, Page 9

ABANDONMENT URGED

W.I. ANNUAL MEETING SAVING TO WAR EFFORT appeal from founder (Special to the Herald.) HASTINGS, this day. A strong appeal to Women’s Institutes to abandon the annual meeting of Dominion institutes, fixed for Ju y. was made to-day by Miss A. E. Jerome Spencer, founder of the movement in New Zealand, who suggests that the saving, approximately £4OOO, should be devoted to some part of the total war effort. “There is no need to stress the extreme gravity of the international situation,” she said. “The responsible heads of the British Government and of all'sections of the Empire and of our Allies are urging every man and woman to give at this moment their utmost of assistance in work and resources and to make every sacrifice to assist our armies’ supreme efforts. “We all know that, if the Allies fail to win, there will thereafter be no Women’s Institutes here or elsewhere in the Empire. We know, too, that now is the moment to act. “This meeting is not due to be called again for two years. The agenda for this year, while of importance to the organisation internally, contains nothing—not even the revision of the constitution—that cannot be held over until better times. “The decision to sacrifice participation in the meeting is one for each individual institute to make some have already so decided —and it can then write to headquarters and direct that such money as it may have already paid over be transferred to a fund for war purposes. It is the responsibility of the institutes in such an emergency to express their individual will. “In a recent broadcast the French Prime Minister declared that men and women in all parts of the world are coming to realise that this struggle directly affects their own countries, homes and lives. Like him, I pray that they, and we members of the women’s institutes, may not do so too late.”