LABOUR WOMEN CONFER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18710, 16 May 1924, Page 9

LABOUR WOMEN CONFER.

AN ASTONISHING SCENE.

LITTLE MOTHER'S FAITH.

OPPOSES BIRTH-CONTROL

CHILDREN AND THEIR CARE.

By Telegraph— Press Association—Copyright.

(Received 11.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z.-Ecuter. LONDON. May 15. An astonishing scene was witnessed at the Labour Women's Conference

A little -woman, who said she was the mother of 11, denounced the general teaching of birth-control methods. "Working women greeted her with a storm of hisses, and women on all sides cried their dissent. The little woman stood her ground, however, and proclaimed her faith in ringing tones. What can be nicer than children, she asked? The economic conditions of mothers should be improved, but Our Lord himself instructed women in their duty when He said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me."

Other speakers on the subject aroused similar outbursts of passionate feeling among many of the delegates.

The chairwoman admitted that she found a difficulty in keeping order during the debate.

The conference finally passed a resolution urging the Minister for Health to appoint a committee to inquire into the care exercised in maternity cases, to investigate the physical and social effects of various methods of birth-control, and to recommend a scheme to make the ' best method available to women desiring it.

The conference also passed a resolution that the school age should be raised to 16 in order to prevent the annual flooding of the labour market by 600,000 14-year-old children.

Miss Susan Lawrence, Labour M.P. for East Ham, said that the -waste of child life was getting on the national conscience. She condemned the placing of children in industry at their most susceptible age, when their, characters were being formed and their intellects were developing.

Protests against the emigration of children apart from their relatives to the Dominions were made by delegates. The conference passed a resolution urging the stoppage of such emigration until completely satisfactory plans were made to ascertain the children's own inclinations and supervise them after arrival at their destinations.