WOMEN'S MASS MEETING

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2285, 20 October 1914, Page 2

WOMEN'S MASS MEETING

ADDRESSED BY MRS. SNOAVDEN j A largely attended women's meeting was addressed by Mrs. Philip Snowdon in tho Town Hall yesterday, ■ presided over by Lady Stout. Occupying scats upon tho .platform .were .the Mayoress and a. number of well-known Wellington woinon, some of whom are- connected with various societies working in tin interests of women and children. .

in the course of 'her very eloquent address, Mrs; Snowden said in her work among t'ho slums of Liverpool, she had delved into the causes of tho unspeakable squalor and misery and degradation in which so . many people lived and died. She had found 'that wliilo drink was not the whole cause,for there were some who had never touched it, it was a serious aggravation of poverty. Then she concentrated m>oll fighting the- liquor traffic but as they had not got local veto and as there was no prohibition party in Britain save for a little group in Dundee, that went about breaking up temperance meetings because they did not believe in half-measures to begin -with, tho struggle -was an almost hopeless one. Political power was the only way to fight it, and so for the laste ten years she had thrown her energies into the woman's franchise movement. One of the arguments that had been used against prohibition in this country was that t'ho revenue would suffer. She lield that with the money that was paid away .in police stations, policemen, judges, lunatic asylums, hospitals, for all of which they were taxed, they would noff lose. What they jiaid directly into the State.' coffers would be more tljan compensated for by the abolition of these things. The time was ripe, rotten ripe, for reform, and tho whole future of the human race, men and women (for neither' stood or foil without tho other), was largely/bound lip in the question of the abolition of this evil. ' At the close of the address a, resolution was moved by Mrs. A. It; Atkinson:. "That this public meeting of women, .while rejoicing that drink is banished from the camps'-and the troopships, deplores the open disregardof Cord Kitchener's plea by some sections of tho trade and somo members of the jniblio ■in the open tomptations to drink thrown in ttio way of tho members' of tho Expeditionary Forces, and calls upon tho Government and the military authorities to take all steps that mny bo necessary to protect future contingents from this acknowledged injury to health and military efficiency." The resolution was seconded by Mrs. Hoby, and carried unanimously. A vote of thanks to Mrs. Snowden for her lecture was proposed by the Mayoress and seconded by-Mrs. Glover of the Salvation Army. Mr. Page played tho "Marseillaise," and the National Anthem, ended Ihe meeting.