necessary for in Manila awaited a people whose history has been one of subjugation for over 500 years. Their feelings may best be expressed in the messages of welcome extended to us by their President and Vice-President. Like the Philippinos, I too believed that this was the one objective which inspired all our greatest hopes and expectations and because of this fact I have chosen this particular theme as the focal point from which I have tried to analyse the conference, because of course it was the one objective which affected me most and which affects our people as a whole. If this objective was merely a statement of meaningless words to touch the gullible, then I am afraid the conference had no meaning for me and no value to you: in which case I could well be classed as a sentimental fool clutching at straws. But when I saw that the President of the Philippines and all his people were similarly affected as well as all the delegates from the Asian countries, then I felt I was not alone in considering this as the fundamental theme of conference and the real reason for our being there. Hence the moment of arrival when hands clasped hands and east met west, only emphasised the hour when all would give voice to the burning desires which were common to all, i.e. security against want and war and a lasting peace based upon greater understanding, sympathy, friendship, and most important of all, justice. It remained with the conference then to bring about a unity of thought based upon sincerity of feeling and ideals which transcend all barriers. Unfortunately in some ways the conference was not entirely successful and many of these hopes, desires, feelings of friendship, etc., nurtured for so long were unrealised. May I say that these are my thoughts and mine alone.

How Others Live All this does not, however, overlook the fact that conference was attended by many brilliant women and we all had a mental feast of equally brilliant studies totalling altogether something like fifty papers. These were on all aspects of our stated theme Social and Economic Interdependence. In most of these papers we heard how women in various countries had struggled for equality, but more important still we learned their way of life and the standards of living maintained in the various countries and in so doing we were able to make comparisons. These studies were particularly valuable to women coming from the less privileged countries in showing them not so much ways to a better life, but ways of improving standards of living and creating greater opportunities for women to participate in the social and economic life of their various countries. In this sphere New Zealand was particularly outstanding as an example well worth emulating. Our standards of living, education and especially our Social Security system came in for much envy. So much so that I was asked to find out whether there were scholarships available to students to enable them to come here and study our Social Security system. One of the questions asked more often than any was “what is the percentage of illiteracy in your country?” Being accustomed to seeing all our children march off to school at the tender age of 5, the problem had never occurred to me and therefore I never took any time out to study the question prior to leaving. I could only say, if there were any illiterates the number would be so negligible it would not have been considered a matter worthy of statistical research. I hope I was not too far off the mark. In any case our compulsory education policy introduced in 1877 presupposes a situation of almost total literacy. In comparison free education in Manila was given only up to the age of 11 years. Perhaps one of the most important things that women from countries such as ours derived from the conference was the realisation of our own great good-fortune in being blessed with so much. But may I say that being blessed with so much of the physical needs of man, we may yet be lacking in those things which bring greater satisfaction to the human spirit.

Asia Learns About the Maori Both Mrs Bennett, an executive member of the league who also attended the conference, and I presented papers at conference, Mrs Bennett's paper was on Maori handicrafts and mine was on our organisation. These topics were selected for us by the programme organisers. Although Mrs Bennett spoke of our handicrafts we had little to contribute from the point of view of their economic value since our handicrafts have never been commercialised to any great extent and certainly not to affect the economy of the country to any noticeable degree. What was required at conference were new ideas of developing home industries in order to help supplement the family incomes of country dwellers, as well as the social and cultural values of such activities. We have never utilised our handicrafts in that way since the need has never arisen in a system of economy which enjoys full employment. The idea of our Maori Women's Welfare League as an organisation principally based on self-help was to my mind a sufficiently interesting example for any similarly situated groups of women to follow. The fact that it also receives a degree of government assistance showed that any such selfhelp projects of a very practical nature do require government assistance in their initial stages, particularly when they concern the immediate family and the community as a whole. The other perhaps more important point is that our organisation does not exist because of segregation, but because of the very fundamental needs of our women, the most important of which is the need to identify themselves as self-determining individuals with the right to choose what is best for themselves in this ever-changing world or the responsibility of creating better lives for themselves in their own way.