WOMEN AT THE EMPIRE EXHIBITION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19135, 1 April 1924, Page 5

WOMEN AT THE EMPIRE EXHIBITION.

Many people realise (hut apart from the perhaps more obvious purposes trade, finance, publicity, or amusement—the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley will have a big role to fill in emphasising the home lite of the Empire. \Ve hue to think of the Empire as an ideal of lamily Hie—a grown-up family now it is true—hut stib hold together by common ideals and common needs. No one holds this view more strongly than the International Woman Suffrage Alliance’s British Ovciseas Committee, who has just secured a site at the Exhibition for the erection of a little pavilion. , , Some branches of this family have, not met for years, ami perhaps we may almost say that the daughters of our Empire have never met in such a way as this, the sons of Australia, Canada, iNew Zealand, and the other dominions and parts of the Empire met during the war; they shared dangers and hardships and proved the strength of the tie of blood. Now sons and daughters together ha\e an opportunity of meeting which comes at a moment when prospects for the future are brigntenirifs. when constructive work in common is a shining possibility, and when the festivities ’ which should mark the coming together of the scattered members of a largo family are looming largo in all our thoughts. Here is au opportunity for people of every sort of work and interest (farmers, politicians, workers, and professional people) to make acquaintance, to exchange news and views; the Old Country is eager to stretch out a glad hand of welcome, to open its homes to its returning children, to give ample information about its own doings, and to learn of their manifold activities overseas. Women arc to be well entered for. and many centres are to bo opened by all sections of women’s activities —philnnthropical, social, hospitable, politieal, etc. Nowadays wo cannot shove politics on one side as outside the sphere of ordinary folk—men and women alike know that politics mean the conditions under which wo all alive — they menu the home, they mean the children, they moan alt those tilings which closely concern the. women whether as worker, wife, or mother. Moreover, the war and all the misery which it brought in its train, has taught us that no country stands alouie, wo must think in wider terms, in terms of the common co-bjieratioii of all people of goodwill. We must envisage ourselves as follow workers not only in our own community or our own state, but the wide world over. Problems of daily life, nationality, marriage, children, war, and peace, home-life—all thesu are the human and political interests of women and men everywhere, and it is (his common interest now so widely realised that will make the Alliance Overseas Pavilion in the Exhibition a rallying point for thinking women of all lands. Our politics are not “puny politics,” for the alliance is nonparty—that is of all parties; but they touch women at every point, and interest women of widely differing views. All women, bo they workers in industry, in the professions or in the homo, will find something cjf special interest, and will have the opportunity of learning from each other how (he problems which all have to meet are being dealt with elsewhere. It does help to emphasise how alike our lives really are when wo find the same difficulties cropping np on opposite sides of the world; It is stimulating to learn how others have surmounted them, and perhaps not without secret gratification, do wo tell those still struggling with some particular problem, that ‘‘where we come from” wo have found a glorious solution. They in (heir turn may shed light on what has seemed to other s 'ctions of the Empire family insurmountable difficulties. “florae and talk it over at Wembley" is the feeling, and who knows what encouragement and good results may evntuate from a friendly attitude barked bv wide experience of woman’s life the world over, which is the foundation of the British Overseas Committee Pat ihon at (he British Empire Exhibiton.