WOMEN’S INSTITUTE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19861, 26 July 1934, Page 12

WOMEN’S INSTITUTE

LORD BLEDISLOE OPENS CONFERENCE By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, July 25. Three hundred delegates are attending the conference of the Federation of Women’s institutes which was opened this morning by Lord Bledisloe. A welcome to the city was extended last night at a function in the Masonic Hall at which the Mayor. Mr T. C. Hislop, congratulated the members on the remarkable development of their work and wished them success in the future.

Lord Bledisloe mentioned that in four years the number of institutes had increased from 120 to 749, the increase during last year alone being 114. He referred to the existence of two organisations, between which it was difficult to draw any clear line of demarcation, the Women’s Institutes and the Womens’ Division of the Farmers Union and said that in the best interests of their beneficiaries, and in view of the expense involved in the quality of organisation and administration, which New Zealand’s countryside could ill afford, overlapping of the two movements was undesirable and harmonious co-operation between them, if not actual unification, was absolutely essential.

He said the Institutes were steadily becoming a powerful lever for raising country women, however isolated their location might be, out of the narrow rut of domestic drudgery into the more rarified atmosphere of true culture and social usefulness. This not merely rescued them from normal and spiritual collapse, but by the tonic of diversity of interest, tended to convert drudgery into happy and worthwhile employment. It was right, he said, that some resolutions should deal with matters requiring Government intervention, but he advised them to be on their guard, lest resolutions of this character should preponderate. Self reliance and perseverance must ever be the watchword of Women's Institutes, if rapid and inspiring progress was to be broadbased upon impregnable foundatons.