The New Zealand Times. SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 1925. FOR UNIVERSAL PEACE—THE WOMEN'S PART

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12211, 8 August 1925, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 1925. FOR UNIVERSAL PEACE—THE WOMEN'S PART

Woman has quietly taken her part in the pacification of the world. The Treaty of Versailles, the Occupation of the Ruhr, the Dawes Pact, the League of Nations, the Geneva Conferences—all these have been busy with this vitally important matter. Some progress has" been made certainly; but, at the same time, there are wars and rumours of wars. The women assembled at the World’s Conference of the International Council of Women have declared emphatically that they are sick of these wars and rumours of wars. They have done more. They have taken practical steps to get the world away from these disturbing things, and cdt down to the practical work of establishing the good understanding which is the only possible preventive of disastrous fighting. They have seen their sons and brothers, their lovers and their husbands sacrificed ■to misunderstandings and worse; They want a better state of things. They remember that the world’s most trecent chief peacemaker had said that it is useless to move fop peace without the support of a universal public opinion, founded on righteousness. How they have set about this work a delegate to the conference, Miss Amy Kane, our correspondent, has told us in an illuminating letter published yesterday in our news columns. To the question of what gain has been made by,the conference, she has replied, with much common-sense: “A better international understanding.” That is, of course, the basic groundwork which President Wilson thought so vitally necessary for the eventual establishment of universal peace, so much desired by the world. As a matter pf course, there can be no peace without this complete international understanding. ,j The conference, we are shown, has covered the whole field of international relations as they affect the women of the world; naturally, for that is the province of the women of the world assembled m conference. But when the women have come to a better understanding about the problems affecting their status and well-being in the world, there will be little left for the men to contribute to any general better understanding. At all events, there will then be but little difficulty in the arrangement of anything there may be left of the things not properly understood. The conference was in this respect a revelation. Women representing different viewpoints on every conceivable thing were able to meet in conference and discuss dispassionately and sensibly the problems that have arisen and urgently require settlement. Difficulties of language, of citizenship, of migration, of status and sphere, were discussed in the most happy maijner. The interests remaining, after the disruption of empires and the forcing of sovereignties on peoples without consulting their views, difficulties, and disabilities of uprooting policies, presented confusion of ideas and of wishes, difficulties incalculable, but the discussions were of the smoothest and kindliest. Much was feared from the passions of the war, but there might have never been a war so fa,r as the relations of the delegates to the conference were concerned. Nothing actual seems to have been done. But the good understanding established all round the world is unmistakable. It has created the atmosphere needed for the settlement of problems ancient and mpdern. And this is the first step towards that general understanding without which every effort for universal peace is impossible. The exception to the completeness of representation. at tfie conference was not forgotten by our correspondent. There, were no delegates from Turkey and India. The exception is important. It is also natural, for the women of those countries are in a civilisation all their own, very different from the civilisation enjoyed by their sisters of more modern ideas." But when progress is made by the latter the opportunity will come for the consultation of the former, and with the opportunity will come the will. For the human svill is sure to follow all things that are of proved goodness. Here we have a hint for the. solution of .the much-discussed question of the Yellow Peril. On the establishment. of a better international understanding undoubtedly brought about : by this conference we congratulate the women of the world, and the world they have thus benefited. It may be a long way to universal peace. But the women have taken a first step, each one present at the conference having made a strong petsonal effort. So far, then, the women have done their part. 1 ■ ,