WHITE SLAVE TRADE.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2001, 7 March 1914, Page 6

WHITE SLAVE TRADE.

HERE & ELSEWHERE. AN ADDRESS AT THE W.C.T.U. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) Clsborne, March 6. . The outstanding feature of the session of the W.C.T.U. was an address by Mrs. Field, of Nelson, on tho white slave traffic.

"I wonderj" said Mrs. Field, ''does tho history of the world hold anything worse, in all wo read of its savagery and cannibalism, its brutalities, and inhumanities? Can- anything equal the white slave traffic of this twentieth century ? _ After two thousand years of Christianity in tho most Christian country of the world thousands and thousands of young girls are stolen and bought and sold into tho most awful slavery. Young and often refined girls are entrapped and held in bondage.** Think what it must mean to suffer such nameless indignities, and we, Christian women, have never lost a night's sleep jas we thought of them. We read and hear of it, and we sometimes fear that it may happen to those we kuow and love, but, of tho others —those that wo do not know —how much do wo care? If wo women of the Dominion truly cared theso tilings need not be. They exist because of our indifference. How many of us have raised our voice against oven what is termed a 'double standard of morality' for men and women?

_ ''Every year, in every large city of tho civilised world, thousands of girls are forced unwillingly into this life—a life so awful that, in somo cases, they only live a year, in others two years or more, but seldom as much as seven years. And yet the price of an English girl is from £30 to £200. Do you wonder how it pays?" Tho speaker hero read statistics bearing on the subject, and then went on to forcefully describe the horrible conditions' alleged to be present in Paris, New York, in the French colonies, in. South America, and the Continent.

In New Zealand. Mrs. Field proceeded: "The question is how to create the necessary. public opinion. I think the'finis step is to make known as widely as possible tho character ana extent of the traffic. Unless the men and women of our Dominion.know of the existence of this traffic very little can bo doiio. . They must first be made to realiso that it is a fact that girls and young women are .being entrapped, and forced into this trade, and that tho men and women who do this arc not doing it for. their own gratification, but to make money out of it. Enough women will not tako up this - lit" o irom free will, and so they are procured by guile. Tho syiaker then described some of tho methods by which these agencies work in other countries. "This," continues Mrs. Field, "is a plain statement. This thing is no nightmare, but an awful hideous reality. A suggestion will come' before us in the form of a resolution from the Nelson Union, asking us to consider the advisability of appointing a superintendent for this subject, to. gather-'informa-tion, ..and also to suggest preventive measures. Whatever is decided on, I hopo no woman will go.from this convention feeling that this.is a thing that does not concern-her. It concerns.us all, and wo have it on fairly good authority that, already, this traffic has reached our shores, and that over twenty girls have disappeared recently. I wrote, for information. May 1 here given you an extract from the letter which! received. Tho writer says:

A Letter.. " 'Yes, girls aro being stolen from New Zealand in connection with th'is infamous traffic. Ono of their agents, purporting to be with a company, married a girl recently in , and that is the last that has been seen or heard of her. —— seems to bo the hot place. A man and his wife in that district are on tho track of girls. Ono girl working for a lady whom I met in - — narrowly escaped their clutches. They were in correspondence with her, offering her better work, better wages, etc.,' and the girl was ready to accept, but the lady (her mistress) saw one of the letters, and suspected 'evil. She immediately sent the girl back- to her parents, and when the man and his wife called to see "their' little friend" her daughter, who was at home, to put them off the scent said that the girl had gone to work for another family in the town, but she had forgotten the address. If they would call the' next •morning, when her mother was in, perhaps she might bo able to get it. Her mother is a very firm woman, and she wanted to meet them, but they, never returned. The girl is still safely at home, but as her homo iB near there is no telling how long she may remain so. There have been cases in Auckland that leave scarcely a shadow of doubt, but it is extremely difficult to trace'tho "cadets," dnd so one can do but little publicly.' /

Call for Activity. "The writer of this letter is doing what she can to warn parents' and girls, but is not able to give as much time to it as she would wish. I believe wo are the largest and most influential woman's organisation in the Dominion, as we are in the world. \\ hat are we going to do as an organisation and what as individuals? Ido hope you will each do something, not from selfish motives, not to save, those you love, not to add a star to your crown, but that you may have the inestimable privilege of having helped to raise a brother a little higher, of having helped to save a sister from falling."