REAL LIFE ADVENTURE

NZ Truth, Issue 1202, 13 December 1928, Page 21

REAL LIFE ADVENTURE

I Politics and Poems Are Field For ) Aucklander "Adventure" is the name of a slim little book of poems published m America by Mrs. Victor Mackay, now of Auckland. . Those hard-boiled gentry, the American verse critics, were exceedingly friendly to ,the book.

IT is its author's maiden verse production—and over m. London town a still higher compliment has been paid by the reading of selections before the London Lyceum Club. "Adventure" might, m one sense, be the title of Edna Mackay's life, for she is a believer m the spirit of adventure,

and is doing her best to introduce it into the social and political life of New Zealand women. . ■ ■ First and foremost, she played a distinguished part m the inauguration of the New Zealand Pensvomen's League, of which she is a vice-president. The league, which is the first of its kind m New Zealand, has the object of drawing together women wanderers of the inky way, and of fostering generally the literary talen^ which this country so sorely needs. During the- recent elections, she wrote a pamphlet titled "Why Women Should Vote Labor," which was published to the -tune. of forty thousand copies— a : most unusual success for any woman's political production. From time to time, a faint ray of idealism penetrates even into those dusty and musty, retreats where our politicians sit m state: people believe, once again, that a "happy and healthy world is a thing possible- to all men, and that the salvation "of the people lies, m the people's own hand. Ruskin, m his day, sent such a light flying through England. And of late, among the women of England and America, there has been a revival of this idealistic spirit, m which some of the woi-Id's noblest women have tn.kf>n part. Mrs. Mackay has probably brought her politically progressive spirit from America, along with her splendid powers of organizing and efficiency. But all New Zealand women- will listen with interest to what she has to say on the political question. ' "To stand for the welfare of many thousand workers — to spread the gospel of health and happiness m opposition; to the false values that money and the ■ love of power stand for, seems strangely like tti<j "doctrines the Divine Carpenter, taught- m a dirty, little , Hebrew -V /town two thousand years v ago)": sRe says. • . . "Ifhe 'time is coming when polity tits will/. not be the plaything of egotists, but will be undertaken by men and/women who are purely ■; ••-' huriianitarian m- .their desires. j'Alreidy., . the political field • has attracted ."doctors, -lawyers, University stuclerits;; Avritei'S' and practical .thinkers;. .There is, locally, a possibility of ■a . movement -which will unite these up to the .present have [.■been, scattered."; Beading up law particularly as it applies to ' questions affecting women, together with study of such weighty matters as economics and the land tax, takes a deal of Mrs. Mackay's time.