ENJOYABLE RECEPTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 229, 27 September 1928, Page 11

ENJOYABLE RECEPTION.

A very enjoyable reception was held yesterday afternoon in Lewis Eady's Hall, to enable Auckland ladies to meet Miss MeCorkimlale, who is visiting this city. The guests were welcomed at tbe entrance to the hall bv the Mavoress (Mrs. A. D. Campbell*, assisted by the ladies of the committee, consisting of Me&dames W. H. Parker, W. R. Wilson, •T. C. Dickenson. -T. T. F. Mitchell. R. A. I.aidlaw. T. H. Maeky. J. A. Bradstreet, 0. A. Whitney, and Miss Carnachan. Tlie afternoon ti:a was laid out at the sides of the. room and tables were decorated, as was tlie >tage, with some very fine bowk of ranunculi, pale pink stocks, and masses of Iceland poppies. Before afteryioon tea was, served Miss" MoCorkiiidiile was introduced to the gathering by the Mayoress, who welcomed her to Auckland, and spoke of her educational attainments. Mias McCorkindale spoke charmingly and oft times amusingly on the subject of "'Women and Progress." She said that educational work amongst young people appealed to lier greatly. and that was why she was visiting New Zealand. The youn,g people were ?o very iattractive to her. Last year she had Veturned from a three years' trip abroad ' in which she had been observing women. land she had found in every country in tbe world the women were making contributions to world affairs. The women of the Old Land took their citizenship a great deal more seriously than the women of these new lands, her own country (Australia) and New Zealand. In Australia they had seven Parliaments and one woman member'for them all. The mother of Parliaments, that was so conservative, had six women members, and one of these was the associate of a Minister of the Crown. She thought that perhaps New Zealand and Australia had won the franchise so easily that they did not take up seriously things which represented a woman's contribution to the world. The danger to women's work was that they allowed tbeir judgement to be controlled by men's thought. The women did not think out moral problems seriously, but allowed 1 their minds to be warped by men's opinions. If women were to make their contribution to progress they must think through things for themselves. [Women's place in national progress was to see that these questions of life, as a woman knew life, were thought out 6n a higher plane. Miss McCorkindale dwelt on the power that Lady Astor had been in the life of women of England. When she was* elected she went to the leader of an organisation with whom the speaker was acquainted and asked her what the women's organisation really wanted, as she intended to I help them to get it. She was not a good party woman, but out for the greater good, and her influence was vast. She dressed so plainly, in a blue suit, which she called her business dress, and had worn it so long when the speaker was in England that the papers had begun to ask when Lady Astor was going to get a hew frock. And this was the woman who had given her unused pin money to charity. It amounted to £90.000. What coufd have been this woman's social life if she had not given herself to the greater things of the world's progress. China was one

of the places whieh astonished the speaker, and about which very little was known. There were forty factories in China owned and managed by women, and a large number of women engaged in science. Women were railway guards and ticket collectors, and she knew of one electric telephone company owned and operated by Chinese women. In Germany, too, the women were well to the fore'. The" speaker said she did not know how man women were in Parliament, but she saw a picture of the Socialistic section, and there were eixteen women in it. Miss McCorkindale urged upon those present that they should think seriously about public problems and come to their own conclusions if they wished to be in the march of women towards progress in the world. At the conclusion, afternoon tea was served, and during the afternoon songs were sung by Miss Hope Assher and pianoforte solos played by Miss Olive Luxton.