WOMEN LECTURERS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8361, 22 February 1913, Page 12

WOMEN LECTURERS

By the Victoria there arrived in Auckland on Sunday two women lecturers. Miss Harriet Newcomb and Miss Mar garct Hodge, who will address meetings of women during their stay in New Zealand. Miss Newcomb and Miss Hodge have just completed a tour of the larger cities of Australia, and will visit all the big centres of the Dominion before icturning Home. Miss Harriet Newtomb is secretary of the New and Ac otralian Women Voters* a well-known and ever-growing association, whose headquarters are in London, and whose primary object is the watching oi all Imperial legislation affecting the enfranchised women of Australasia, and also the forwarding of the women's move-

ment in. Britain.; Hiss Margaret Hodge is a noted social worker La London. The mission of these ladies in visiting the Dominion is two-fold. In. the first place they will make it their business to inquire into the workings here of the Imperial Naturalisation Act. a suggested amendment of which would, according to Miss Newcomb, seriously interfere with the political rights of any woman coming under its application. They will also endeavour to meet the leaders and members of the women's political and social unions here, with the idea of promoting a good understanding between them _ and the women's organisations of Britain. ‘'After all," said Miss Newcomb to a "Weekly News" representative, “women, whether in England or New Zealand, are all striving after the same end —enlightenment, education, advancement. If the different women’s unions cannot he united, there can at least be the bond of mutual striving and sympathy between them." Both ladies were present at the Congress of the Imperial Women’s Suffrage Alliance in Stockholm in 1911. and will go to the big congress of a similar nature at Bnda Pesth in June of this year. The congress at Buda Pesth will be the subject of one of Miss Newcomb's addresses to New Zealand women, and she will also endeavour to make known to theln the very; distinctive place held by New Zealand in the world movement for womanhood suffrage. Miss Newcomb and Miss Hodge hope to induce numbers of. people to attend the congress, which, they say, will be one of the biggest and most important conferences ever held, for the eyes of women, enfranchised and without franchise, all the world over will be fixed upon xt.