WOMEN’S PEACE MOVEMENT

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 2, Issue 9, 1 March 1924, Page 19

WOMEN’S PEACE MOVEMENT

There are many reasons that make this announcement interesting to the women of New Zealand. The assembly, to give it its full title, is to be a "Conference on the Prevention of the Causes of War," and matters dealing with the late Great War are strictly ruled out of discussion. All the important women's international organisations are associated with the objects—the International Council-of Women, the International League for Peace and Freedom, the World's W.C.T.U., the World's Y.W.C.A., to mention only a few of those societies at whose very earnest request the Conference is being organised by the International Council of Women. There are in this Dominion branches of all these bodies, and hence the interest that will be taken here in the proceedings in England. And the need for such a gathering, and such a subject, is felt by these representative women of all countries in Europe— only by British women, but by the women of all the different countries concerned. They deem the political situation in Eastern Europe so critical that some great effort is urgently needed to rally all serious-minded people—of all races and of all classes—to concentrate on the one aim, and that, the maintenance of peace. War has proved, as it always has been in fact, international anarchy. The purpose of the Conference is therefore for the full discussion of the prevention of the CAUSES of war, with the object of giving opportunity to demonstrate the universal support of an international policy based upon the promotion of permanent peace and to secure co-operation of ALL in a movement to strike at the very roots of the causes of war. Then, too, it will be held during the great Empire Exhibition, to which crowds will flock from all quarters of the earth. Moreover, the women will meet in a special pavilion, which the International Council of Women is having built for the occasion, and this pavilion will form the centre of all feminist activities during the period of the Exhibition. As the readers of the Ladies' Mirror are aware, there are numbers of women in this Dominion closely and directly connected with the International Council of Women through the National Council of Women of New Zealand, with which are federated all the important societies working for the improvement of the conditions of life (one big family, although having different interests), and this has branches in the seven largest towns in New Zealand. To each of these seven groups Lady Aberdeen and Temair (President of the 1.C.W.) has sent a personal letter inviting their "co-operation towards a concerted peace movement" by similar activities in this country; also members of the New Zealand Council are cordially invited to associate themselves with the pavilion at Wembley, should they be in England this summer. An opportunity will be given them to explain the conditions existing in this portion of the Empire.

Several New Zealand newspapers recently published a cable stating that a PEACE CONFERENCE will be held at Wembley, England, under the auspices of the International Council of Women, during May next.

Already as many as thirty-six countries, including New Zealand, have accepted the invitation to be represented on the occasion. Is there any need for me to stress the immense importance of the united and concerted action on the part of women of all countries of Europe towards a better mutual understanding and towards international peace? Countries adjacent, and formerly one, cannot fail to have many problems, many incidents that cause grave friction and bitter feeling. But on this occasion women of Hungary will be in daily intercourse with those from Czeeho-Slovakia and Austria; from Italy and Greece; Bulgaria and Jugo-Slavia. They will meet on neutral ground and will forgather with women from the Scandinavian countries and from the British Commonwealth of Nations, and will learn how these Teuton nations arrive at a compromise without loss of dignity. An influence such as this peace movement seeks to generate will, if rightly directed, be overwhelmingly on the side of peace and the settlement of differences by conference without recourse to arms. It is felt, and rightly felt, that women as mothers of the future generations are in a special manner guardians of the human race, protectors of future manhood of the nations, and as mothers they are determined to do all that women can to protect civilisation from the devastating frightfulness of modern warfare; and, if only possible, to save the world from the cataclysmic results such as the present age has witnessed since the Great War. Some nations have not even yet, five years after the cessation of active hostilities, emerged from the long enduring nightmare of slaughter and acts of warfare, but still live under the shadow of tear from attack either from outside or from revolution in their midst. The WOMEN'S PEACE MOVEMENT emphasises the imperative duty of each individual woman to work for peace by cultivating the spirit of international forbearance and by learning to discountenance that foolish habit of disparaging one nation because it has different modes of life and thought from our own. That false estimate of relative values. I can almost hear some remarks to the effect that such may sound all right, but how can a single woman have any effective influence on these lines? She has no need to be too humble in these matters and in her own circle, no matter if it happens to be from the world's point of view an insignificant circle without political influence; she can uphold the maintenance of peace, and most emphatically ought to discourage that masculine dictum "there must always be war," or reference to "the next war." There must be no "next war" as long as the memory of the "boys" is green and the graves in Flanders, France and Gallipoli remind us of their sacrifice. Above all, she can influence those children of school age during their most impressionable years. Also she can induce those of her surroundings to support movements that promote sympathy and mutual understanding between nations. Among other things can be the spread of information concerning the League of Nations, thus helping to popularise that scheme.

1 he Treaty of Versailles carved up the map, of Europe as if under the instigation of the Devil himself! The results could not have been worse. For in the honest endeavour to materialise that most deceptive of phrases, “the right of small nations to self-determination,” there have been created more racial antagonism, more insoluble problems than any

statesman could have conceived. They have left a legacy of internecine strife and financial confusion that is, apparently, beyond the wit of man to straighten out. The Covenant of the League of Nations is the only inheritance from that Treaty that does not make for bitterness between nations. I would like to commend to the public some of those readable little handbooks issued by the League of Nations Union (London), costing a few pence only. Many misconceptions as to its powers and the work already done would be dispelled after reading these; and greater support of public opinion would result, hence contributing to the greater success of this new policy of settling disputes between the governments. For it is an "informed" public opinion that alone will make the League an effective power in the Avorld to-day. What Ave women must aim at is to strive to form public opinion in favour of peaceful means of settling international differences; and a "quick" settlement at that, before the "differences" grow into "sores of the body politic." Voters can impress the politicians that the people demand the prevention of war. Surely the British Commonwealth of Nations is strong enough to eschew vainglorious "rattling of the sword in the scabbard," and wise enough to eschew a policy that is likely to arouse suspicion of her peaceful intentions. Such is the spirit that animates the WOMEN'S PEACE MOVEMENT. Edith F. C. Leech.