WOMEN’S INSTITUTE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 11327, 3 October 1930, Page 4

WOMEN’S INSTITUTE

GREATEST SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT. \X AGENCY FOR MUTUAL SERVICE. GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S EULOGY. GENEROUS GIFT TO ENCOURAGE DEVELOPMENT. (Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 2. The Women’s Institute movement, which was initiated in several years before tt-he war ana in England during the war, and winch has since spread throughout the British Empire, and into many foreign countries, is probably the greatest social and educational movementamong countrywomen in the world’s history.”

With these words the GovernorGeneral. Lord Bledislne, opened lus address this morning to tho delegates to the first Dominion conference of Women's Institutes in Now Zealand. “It has enabled women to discover their own potentialities through mutual intercourse, tho free exchange of ideals and the pooling of individual knowledge and experience,” continued Lord Blodisloe. “It is the most effective agency in tho Empire to-day for the revival and vigorous promotion of the well-nigh lost virtue, thrift. To those needing human assistance there are three sources of. supply, namely, self-help, mutual helpeand a public subsidy. Women’s Institutes are pre-eminently agencies for mutual service, and through that invaluable medium are tho most efficient and practically means of selfhelp. Doles from the public purse are calculated to destroy self-respect, and eventually produce a nation of mendicants. On the other hand, mutual help and self-help are solidly c onstructive factors both in building up a nation and sustaining its inherent strength and virity, its capacity for sound expansion, and its confidence in its own fufttro destiny. One trend, if unchecked, spells national decadence and humiliation, the other, if 'stimulated, spells national greatness and well-founded pride.” Regarding charitable enterprise, His Excellency said if “righteousness exalted a nation,” nothing more surely and rapidly degraded it- than a complacent drift into mendicancy or avoidable acceptance of charity, whether from individuals or from tho State aim of Women’s Institute 'should lie not to dispense charity. but to dispense with charity, as the outcome of greater knowledge. After dealing with the woman’s part in the advancement of national prosperity and the activities of women’s institute’s in England. Lord Llodislod concluded, “If it- would be helpful as a- spur to its development. Her Excellency and I will be pleased to provide annually for the next, nv'o years, a-prize of To for. the best essay by a New Zealander oil the best, means of making Women’s Institutes of real benefit to the rural areas ot New Zealand.” (Applause).