SUPERINTENDENTS' LETTERS.

White Ribbon, Volume 20, Issue 229, 18 July 1914, Page 13

SUPERINTENDENTS' LETTERS.

Io the Officers of the various branches of the N.Z. Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Dear C omrades, 1 wish to urgent!) draw your attention to the recommendations of the Special Committee of the Wellington Hospital and Charitable Aid Board upon the question of venereal disease*, and also to the deputation, which waited upon Mr Ma->ev in connection with this matter, all of which is published in this issue. 1 would especially ask your attention to clause 11 (eleven). This, if carried out, would be a great step towards the establishment of one of the objectionable features of the hated C l). Acts amongst u*> again, and would inevitably operate mostly in < ases of women. As prompt action is necessary, will each Union pass the subjoined resolution, embody it in a letter to the* Premier, the Minister for Health, and to the member or members of their particular district, and have it published wherever possible? Please bring this matter forward at your next meeting, and send your communication direct from your Union.—Yours, in White Ribbon bonds, \Y. ROBERTS, Legal and Parliamentary Supt. In regard to the* recommendations of the Special Committee of the Wellington Hospital and C haritable Aid Board to consider the question of venereal diseases, this Pram h of the New Zealand Women’s Christian Temperance Union resolves:—

(1) That clauses numbered from 1 to 10 shall be heartily supported. (j) That this Union is ol opinion th.it clause 11 (eleven), which gives the Government power to order the detention of an\ person suffering from these diseases is a dangerous one, not only to personal freedom, but also to the public health. The hignest expert Continental opinion expressed at the la>: Congress, held at Brussels, showed that this very power of detention prevented sufferers from these diseases from seeking medical aid. The Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases, now sitting twice a week in England, issues brief summaries of its proceedings. Our latest advices state that 27 witnesses had been heard, including specialists, and Army and Navy medical officers. Not one of these has even hinted at detention, and not one of them is in favour ct even notifying venereal disease in the same way as other infectious diseases arc* notified. Ten of them oppose all compulsory notification. Mr J. Ernest Lane, senior surgeon of St. Mary’s Hospital, and of the London Lock Hospital, said that although he had formerly been in favour ol notifying all cases of venereal disease to the sanitary authority, he was now convinced that notification would deter sufferers from seeking proper advice, and would lead to increased recourse to quack treatment. If this is so with icg„.d to only notification, how mm h more would it be so if the* penalty of detention were added? (.3) Many of the sufferers from these diseases are innocent wives and children, who arc* victims diseases caused by the- virion* practices of husbands and fathi rs. l’o such detention would mean public ity of a shameful di-ease, and every effort would be* made to conceal their sufferings, and refrain from seeking medical aid. T hi - Union therefore urges that in any attempts to combat these dread diseases all idea of detention will be . bandoned. To the* “Y’s” cf the Dominion. Having, by vote of Convention, again been appointed your Superintendent for another year, may I again beg of you to make use of me. It 1 can help you personally, e.r as a Union, do please write me. I have been reading a paper lately, “I - tln YAV.C.T.U. .1 Necessity ?” i wished, while reading, that all Unions might read it also. The* many excuses brought by the Unions for not having a “Y” are all dealt with very forcibly, that I think I cannot do better than pass them on, with the answers, as in the leafle t. Some one says, “Let the girl- come* in with us.” If they arc* willing to do so, the responsibility would still rest upon the women, and the girls ought to carry the* burden themselves, in order to feel that this work is theirs, and that the success or failure to arouse and bring w ithin the ranks

all the young people of their town rests with them. These “Y's” are the future “W’s,” and must be preparing for the work, or it will suffer at their hands.

“We do not want another organisation.” Is it really another one, or only an added member of the same family? Are mother and daughter two families, even though the daughter has gone to housekeeping? The feeling of ‘‘one and the same’** is still there.

“We have five or six bright young women in the W.C.T.T., and we cannot spare them. Think a moment. Are there not six times as many young women outside who are exertmg just a> powerful a neutral influence? Are not these to be reached? Each life touches a life, and that life another, and this truth applies to the girls who have not taken a definite stand in temperance work, as well as those wno have. Then the young rnon are to be reached through the influence and companionship of the young women. We meet these young men in our young people’s meetings, our literary circles, our social lives; then >hould we not meet them on this platform of principle? Hut no; right here we part company unless we have a society where we can both feel perfectly at home, and hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder, fight under the same banner. We have tried too long the losing experiment of “Why don’t they?” and the fact remimr-; that they do not. We must make every effort to reach them. \To be Continued.)

Dear Sisters, —At the recent W.C.T.U. Convention I had the honour of being appointed “Press” Superintendent. I should like to impress upon you the necessity of taking advantage, whenever possible, of using tne Pres> to forward the great work upon which we are engaged. 1 would urge every Union to appoint a Press Superintendent, whose duties it will be to report each monthly meeting in the “White Ribbon” and local Press. This is ouf year of battle. Let us go forward, grasping every opportunity rhat the Press may offer in publishing facts and figures, in connection with the great Prohibition movement we all have so much at heart. Other departments of the work of the Onion may be brought before the people in this way also. Sisters, ict us be uj and doing, not failing to utilise tl t Press on any and every occasion. Trusting to hear nom you concerning this department before the end of the vear. —Yours in the work, ANNIE DUXFIELD, Press Supt. GOOD CITIZENSHIP DEPT. 1 should like to call the attention of all N.Z. Onions to the resolution passed at a recent meeting in Nelson in connection w ith this department: “That we would ask the proprietors of the local papers to use their influ-

ence with the Press Agency to improve the character of the cablegrams in regard to the movement for Woman .Suffrage in Britain.” All who make a habit of reading these cablegrams in the daily papers will have noticed that they deal almost exclusively with the sensational side of the matter, and the outrages committed by the militant women, thus giving the impression that all the activities of these are militant, and ignoring the fact that the militant section represents only a very -small minority of the women connected with the many suffrage societies, working along various constitutional lines, without recourse to militant methods. Most of the Unions probably know that a deputation, consisting of Miss Newcombe and Miss Hodge. w&> appointed by the Australian and New Zealand Women Voters’ Association (Lcndon) to wait upon the manager of the Australian Associated Press Cablegrams Agency, laying the matter before him, and asking that fuller and more correct information should be cabled, to the colonial papers. The manager refused to receive the deputation on the ground that as the women in those countries already had tbr suffrage, the question in Britain did not interest them except for the sensational incidents. It was in answer to this slur upon colonial women that the foregomg resolution was passed and forwarded to the proprietors of the Nelson papers. I would ask all the N.Z. Unions also to pass this or a similar resolution, and to send it to the local newspaper proprietors, thus bringing their influence to bear upon those who are in a measure responsible for this injustice, both to the women in the colonies and those in England, in the hope that it mav be remedied. MARIAN JUDSON, Supt. of Good Citizenship. PEACE DEPARTMENT. I have been learning much in Australia of the terrible taxation of the military system on the people of the Commonwealth, and have brought back with me some splendid literature on the subject, which I will supply free to anyone willing to circulate it. I am sending sample parcels tp every branch in the Dominion. In addition, 1 am in communication with our World’s W.C.T.U. Peace Superintendent, Mrs Hannah Bailey, and other noble leaders of Christ’s Whiterobed Army. I saw the boys who were going to camp at Easter time in South Australia, travelled in the same trains, and heard the songs, and saw the bottles flying out of carriage windows. It would take a boy of marvellous mould to stand out against the lowering moral influences of these companions. A traveller tells of how he saw, in foreign lands, women working in the fields, because the men were away in training. I had an actual exemplification of that at Gamier. I stayed

at the beautiful home of the M.P. there, Mr Rudell. Mrs Rudell, when driving me to the station in her trap, apologised for the vehicle, saying, “Our boy is away at camp, and so 1 have to do the grooming, etc.” “Oh, Oh,” I thought, “has it come to this in Australia.' The men have to go to drill, or the boys have to go to camp, and the women —refined, gentle, and already overworked in the home, have to do the men’s work outside.” Every woman in New Zealand should steadily oppose the military system for her own sake, for her boys’ sake, for Jesus sake. We should not allow this savage monster of war to take possession of our beautiful Southern lands. God rules and God reigns, and He is able to protect His people still. The fancied foes are very unreal; the actual foes are ominously near, h our hots learn to drink, to smoke, to swagger in camps, they are not to be the glorious soldiers of the Cross that we need for the present day battles. Dear sisters of the W.C.T.U., remember we are “Christ’s ones” first and foremosl, and our Christ is the Prince of Peace, and the One who forbids all strife, all variance, all unkindness. In His dear name oppose the war spirit, and save the nations by Love. —Yours ever in Him, BESSIE LEE-COWIE.

Dear Fellow-Workers, —As the year is advancing, it is to be hoped that each Union is doing something to help the work in the backblocks department. If readers of the “White Ribbon” will save their used magazines, periodicals, etc., and send along to the local Superintendent, the difficulty of not having sufficient literature will cease. When the parcels are sorted and sent to the railway station, they are carried free of charge to railway camps. Men working at sawmills may have parcels sent by passing waggons. Members may know of homes situated in lonely out-of-the-way places, whose inmates would appreciate a parcel of literature occasionally. Trusting that each Union will do the work of this department most fitted to its district.—l remain, vours in the work, L. A. ISRAEL, Dominion Supt. Backblocks.

Dear Sisters, —May 1 call your special attention to the resolution passed at the last Convention re the representation of women on the National Council of Education, viz. : —“That this Convention desires to affirm strongly the advisability of women being represented on the proposed National Council of Education. The Convention is aware that nothing in the recommendation of the Commission prevents the election of women on the Council, but feels that siiKe, according to these recommendations, each body of electors has only one

representative to elect, it may easily happen that no woman will find a scat on the Council; it therefore urges that in a new Kducation Bill the reg dati m for the election of the Council be framed so as to ensure that a certain proportion of the members be women.” The new Kducation Bill will shortly be brought before Parliament, and it is important, in the best interests of National Kducation, that all possible steps should be taken to give effect to this resolution, and to ensure that women shall be represented on the Council. I would therefore ask every Union to endorse this resolution at the next meeting, and to forward a copy of it to their local M.P.—Yours in the work, MARIAN JUDSON, N.Z. Supt. of Good Citizenship. Madam, —May I, through you, appeal to all our Unions for help in distributing our leaflet to men, as they all know by last month's “White Ribbon” the leaflet is now ready. Our aim is to reach every man in the Dominion. This can only be done by the loyal help of all our Unions Some have already come forward and are distributing them in various nays; others, no doubt* are waiting for their inonthh meeting before ordering. But might I urge all secretaries not to overlook this letter at their next meeting, to have it read and considered. I his is a special effort, from which we hope for reallv goad results to our whole Dominion We want to have the leaflet disu - buted to all Boards, Commiuees, Unions, Clubs, Bible Classes, etc., to every gathering of men. Of course, each Union will decide on their own method of circulation, whether bv personal distribution, posting to individuals, or through secretaries, but I hope that all will aim at reaching as nianv as possible. —I am, etc., JKSSIK FIELD. (Already Uriions have ordered over 2000 copies. Gore had a meeting ill Methodic Church after service Sunday evening. It was addressed by minister and doctor, and the leaflets were distributed there. Ngaio is posting to every man in their district. One “White Ribbon” subscriber living in the fer north, where we have no Union, purchased some to distribute herself. If any Union will post or distribute these leaflets, and cannot afford the cost, they can have them free. Our aim is to get them widely distributed?— Kditor “W.R.”)