NATIONS’ NEED

Hokitika Guardian, 24 May 1932, Page 6

NATIONS’ NEED

IS A WOMAN’S ATTENTION,

LONDON, May 23,

“ What the nations of the world need most is a woman’s attention, and particularly the attention of a severe mother,” said the Sydney-born Professor Gilbert Murray, at the Albert Hall. Their housekeeping was shocking, he added, and their food terrible. Professor Murray, .the organist, and the broadcasting official were the only men among the .2800 women present, representing 250,000 of their sex at a conference of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes.

Professor Murray said that the huge attendance of women strikingly testified to recent social changes. Women’s institutes possessed an unrealised power to .secure the well-being of the nations.

Speakers advocated the promotion of British industries and food production by ffibails dP lTbhve’patronage; “deinand-' ed the enlightenment'of the, public in order to compel the production of good films, and urged the continuance of agriculture by peasant farmers. The activities of the : institutes which wore inaugurated in 1915 now number 4887, and include the provision of social centres for the discussion of national and local problems ( training in rural arts and crafts, the production, preservation and preparation of food, the co-operative marketing of members’ products, and the arranging of concerts, folksongs! and dramatic performances.