LADY BADEN-POWELL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22026, 5 February 1935, Page 3

LADY BADEN-POWELL

GIIIL GUIDES' WORK A WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT INFLUENCE IN THE EAST " I think we have solved the problem of perpetual motion," said Lady Baden-Powell, world chief of the Girl Guide movement, who arrived at Auckland from Sydney by the Aorangi yesterday. "At the end of this tour we shall have just one day at home, and then we are off to Sweden." We included Lady Baden-Powell's distinguished husband and their two daughters, the Hon. Betty and the Hon. Heather Baden-Powell, who arc carrying out secretarial duties on the present tour. Most of last year Lady Baden-Powell spent in visits to European countries in the interests of the Guide movement. In recent months she and Lord BadenPowell travelled to Australia by way of Suez and the East Indies. She visited all the Australian capitals except Perth 011 Guide business, and after leaving New Zealand six weeks hence she will undertake a tour of Canada. Fiom England she is to go immediataely to Sweden and then to South Africa. However, she has become used to almost continuous travel in the interests of the great' movement of which she has been Empire head for 15 years and world head for five. New Zealanders in Australia " We saw many Guide gatherings in Australia," Lady Baden-Powell said. " There was a very fine rally of over 5000 at Frankston, the Melbourne Jamboree headquarters. Nearly 2000 Guides came from other parts of Australia and wore entertained for a fortnight. Ihe New Zealand party of 50, under Miss Blackmore and Miss Barron, made a very good impression, as Guiders from New Zealand have done on their visits to England." Lady Baden-Powell spoke hopefully of the influence of the Girl Guide movement upon the status of women in the East. In India, she said, it was helping to overcome the barriers of caste and might be regarded as a bridge between the old order and the new. In the changing order of the East it was necessary to give the best that the West had to offer, and this, she believed, the movement was doing. Experience had proved that it had ail appeal to every race. " Guiding " and Modern Life

" I was very much struck by the Guide work at Thursday Island," she said, referring to the voyage out to Australia. " There were not only white girls, but also Torres Straits islanders, led by missionaries from the island of Vadu. I found the movement active and growing in the Australian capitals. The South Australian Government thinks so well of it that it has given an old school for a training centre. I was asked to give the property a name, and I called it 'Paxlease,' a combination of 'Foxlease,' the name of the English training centre, and 'Pax Hill,' our own home." » Ladv Baden-Powell said she was convinced that guiding had a definite purpose to serve in a period of mechanical movement and hurried chasing after pleasure. It endeavoured to build character and to teach useful arts and handicrafts, the quite practice of which brought the true joy to be found in constructive living. In New Zealand Lady Baden-Powell will confine her work to the four centres and Napier. Sho will leave Auckland to-day, but is to return on Friday to take part in a Guiders' camp-fire gathering at Rangitoto. On Saturday morning she will give an address at the Lyceum Club, and a provincial rally of Guides and Brownies will be held in her honour the same afternoon on the Domain cricket ground.