Conference welcomes the Hon. P. O. S. Skoglund, Minister of Education. On the platform, Mrs Nini Naera and (right) Mrs Miria Logan, Dominion President THE SPIRIT OF CONFERENCE by E. G. SCHWIMMER Photography by Barry Woods THE Sixth Annual Conference of the Maori Women's Welfare League took place in the Palmerston North Opera House from 28 to 30 April. Although I have attended several League Conferences I can never forget the odd contrast between the delegates, housewives often from the remotest back-blocks, and the smooth formal Conference procedure. Who are the delegates? Some come from simple villages with kerosene lighting, where League activities are in a draughty unpainted hall decorated only with trestles; others have electricity and a modern dining hall; others come from prosperous sheep farms. There are delegates who find English difficult, but also ex-teachers and nurses from the towns. Very few are free from the burdens of the housewife; must leave a house full of children minded just for the days of the Conference by an obliging aunt or grandmother. And there are a good number for whom Conference is the only yearly escape from an unchanging routine stretching from the cup of tea of the morning milking till supper long after dark. At Conference, they suddenly become part of the machinery of public affairs and big events. The glare of newspaper publicity is upon every word they utter, the cameras are flashing; they fit for a while into an organisation of top-level efficiency. The agenda papers are distributed—67 pages of single spaced foolscap—some pages white, others yellow, others pink, all for easy reference. The preambles over—delightful preambles, with speeches from the kaurnatuas, the local Mayor, the Prime Minister, other dignitaries—the rush is on. The women brace themselves behind their tables, and attention is magnificent. Behind the tribal namecards one may see no more than an occasional whispered conversation, a moment of weariness, as the unending flow of resolutions, remits and policy decisions are proposed from the microphone on the executive platform. Some of the remits come down in rather forbidding form “That the replies to the 1957 Dominion Council Resolutions Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10, not being satisfactory, such resolutions be reaffirmed as League Policy.” A rustle of leaves, and we all go to the pink pages. The first