WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3398, 30 April 1919, Page 26

WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION.

ANNUAL CONVENTION. NAPIER, April 25. Th. 3 .Women's Christian Temperance Union Convention continued its session on Thursday. The morning -was devoted to discussing plans of work for the coming year. The balance sheet was read, and showed the incoms to be £llß3 16s 6d and the expenditure £798 8s Bd. April 26. At Saturday's sittings of the vV.C.T.U. Convention the report of thd work done for minesweepers was given. The unions subscribed £1453 5s 6d and goods to the value of £362, and these were sent to the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, and many letters of thanks wore received from minesweepers and . members of torpedoed crews. On Saturday afternoon the delegates were motored out to Hastings to a garden party. 1&9 weather was ideal, and an enjoyable time was spent. The dominion president made an appeal for funds for the work, which was liberally responded to. April 28. On Sunday the pulpits of the Napier churches were occupied by visiting delegates to the W.C.T.U. Convention. In the evening the convention delegates attended the Methodist Church, where the Rev. Mr Richards preached the official sermon. On the Monday morning the report of the White Ribbon editor and business manager was read and adopted. Mrs Peryman was unanimously re-elected editor and business manager, and Mrs Evans' associate.

In the afternoon Mr Martin addressed the convention, seeking its support for several amendments to the Shops and Factories Act, particularly in securing better conditions for women shop assistants and for abolishing the late night. The following resolution was passed:— " Seeing that the Government has already admitted through two of its departments—the Health and Defence Departments—that the widows' pensions are not enough to keep a mother and her family unless she either leaves her young children to the care of others while sho goes to work or else, resorts to charitable aid for assistance, we would respectfully urge upon the attention of v the Government the necessity for giving all widows with young children a basis of a pension not less than that granted to epidemic widows or the widows of soldiers. We _ would further venture to point out that it is not in the best interest of the individual or the State > that a mother should have to leave her infant children to the care of others while she works to support them; on the other hand if she does not do this, part of maintenance of her family must ultimately fall upon the State or community through "educatioii (by charitable aid), and her children have to carry a stigma from this source which it should never have been their misfortune to incur." ■