“Women Must Work”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 891, 7 February 1930, Page 9

“Women Must Work”

MOVE IN CAUSE OF PEACE

Deputation to Naval Conference

DELEGATES DISCUSS TONNAGES

IN thanking Britain’s Prime Minister for receiving a huge deputation of the Women’s Peace Crusade and other similar organisations, a leader of the deputation, Mrs. Corbett Ashby said : “You have given ns a more inspiring message than the unfortunate one conveyed by Charles Kingsley, who said: ‘men must work, but women must weep.’ You have suggested that women, too, must work.” The naval conference meanwhile, is pursuing its way toward a settlement of the tonnage bases of the fleets of the five Powers.

United P. A. —By Telegraph—Copyright Reed. 11.30 a.m. LONDON, Thursday. The women’s peace crusade deputation to St. James’s Palace was received by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, on behalf of the whole Naval Confer-

Mr. MacDonald was accompanied by Mr. H. L. Stimson, United States, Mr. R. Wakatsuki, Japan, Mr. J. E. Fenton, Australia, and Mr. T. M. Wilford, New Zealand.

Mrs. Corbett Ashby, president of the British Commonwealth League, introduced the deputation as memorable because it presented women as a new factor in international politics. These women were not only idealists, but represented a practical political force, believing a reduction in armaments to be practicable. All countries would be enormously disappointed if the conference accomplished only a little.

Mrs. Edgerton Parsons, a prominent American University authority, representing a conference on the cause and the cure for war, declared her belief that women could specially help disarmament. “We believe the hour has struck to lay another foundation stone in the edifice of peace,’’ she said, “by beginning the abolition of the Institution of war by substantially reducing naval armaments. In token of this we present our memorials.”

Mrs. Parsons was accompanied by Miss Josephine Schain and Mrs. Caspar Whitney, who deposited the memorials on the table and shook hands with Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and Mr. H. L. Stimson. Madame Gustave Rudler, on behalf of France, recited an impressive list of 10 women's organisations which she represented, including the League of Mothers, and entreated the conference to use its efforts unceasingly until a measure of security was achieved. EIGHTEEN NATIONS Lady Victor Horseley, Great Britain, representing the Women’s Peace Crusade, speaking for 2,000,000 women and IS nationalities, presented resolutions praying for a decrease in naval armaments. She recounted women’s wartime sacrifices, the hardest of which was the parting with husbands and sons without a word or a sign. She declared women would help to fulfil the conference's work a thousandfold more gladly than they had carried out the strenuous and agonising work in the war years. “For every reduction in armaments you may secure you will receive the gratitude and unswerving support of the women of this country,” she added. “If our battleshipes and cruisers were doubled, our danger from starvation would not be reduced, but the suspicion of the world would be aroused against us. Our security lies In the widest extension of arbitration, the outlawry of war and the abolition of the materials of war.” Mrs. C. T. Gauntlett, Japan, supported by Miss Uta Hayashi, both of whom Mrs. Corbett Ashby paid tributes as the initiators of the present movement, faced Mr. MacDonald with a dress-basket containing a huge petition with the signatures of ISO,OOO women at her feet. The petition was summarised to the briefest possible form before being handed in. Mrs. Gauntlett remarked naively: “The basket is overheavy for me to carry.

A PROFITABLE HOUR Mr. MacDonald expressed delight at the presence of the deputation. No hour could be spent more profitably than the hour spent receiving them, he said. “We stand here at the top table in the light of the world,” he added. “Sometimes this is coloured by newspapers, and sometimes it is pure; but my women friends from all the nations represented here are far more entitled to this position than are we. You have been the pioneers of this work. Your work is not done, nor is ours. This conference is not the last, to be held. “Our agreement, whether it satisfies you or not, is not the last word in disarmament, for which we beg you to continue your good work, so that the conference, which will succeed this one, will give you more satisfaction than we shall have been able to do when our present labours are completed.” Mr. MacDonald reviewed the difficulties and complexities of the conference and touched the aims of the various nations who felt the problem of security with differing emphasis, and regarded it from different angles. lie emphatically declared: “I think we are going to get a good agreement.”

He added the conference would got more than that, even if the agreement fell short of expectations. The conference's greatest achievement, was that each delegate had learned to know the others, and to reveal himself and his mind to them.To reach the materials for a mutual understanding, resulting in an immense moral gain, the conference not only faced the ships of the navies actually built, but something much more dangerous, namely, the pro grammes projected in the naval build ing plans. A reduction in programmes was equally effective as the reduction in existing vessels. Mr. H L. Stimson. United States, also thanked the deputation, and en-

dorsed Mr. MacDonald’s remarks. He pointed out that progress toward disarmament must be a lengthy and evolutionary one, because the vital process of engendering the international mental habit of mutual trust was necessarily slow.

SUBMARINE ABOLITION

LITTLE CHANCE OF SUCCESS CONFERENCE SPEEDS UP British Official 'Wireless Reed. Noon. RUGBY, Thursday. The first committee of the Naval Conference is continuing its examination this afternoon of the compromise proposals on the category and global tonnage theories. The next public session of the conference is fixed for Tuesday, when the British Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, will state the reasons which have led Britain to suggest the total abolition of submarines. It is generally recognised that the attitude of other- countries toward underwater craft removes any possibility that the conference would agree to such a course, but it 'is felt that a full explanation of the British attitude toward submarines will provide an opportunity for a review of the question, during which the standpoint of each country can be expressed. Although delegates are satisfied with the general trefid of the conference, there was an improvement at last evening’s meeting of the delegations, with Mr. MacDonald’s suggestion that means should be found for speeding up its progress. Although the delegations have been busily engaged on questions of much complexity, they have been reminded that the time factor requires that discussions should produce decisions without undue delay. TOWARD SOLUTION Progress was made today toward solving one of the most difficult problems with which the London Naval Conference is faced, namely, that of reconciling the rival methods for the limitation of naval armaments. Following Tuesday’s discussion of these proposals, there have been further consultations between the delegations and a meeting of the first committee was held this afternoon, in which the position was again reviewed. A COMPROMISE It is understood the idea now being followed is to work toward a final agreement, which would lay down a global tonnage, but at the same time embody in it a table in which each Power, after discussions between the delgations, would have allocated its global tonnage between the categories. A communique issued this evening states the committee examined the possibility of reconciling the two methods of limitation, and proceeds: "Subject to renewal by the Italian delegation of its general reservation regarding the necessity for prior determination of the questions of ratio and total tonnages, substantial progress was made. The committee then entered on a discussion of ths classification to be adopted for the various types of warships. On this subject, also, good progress was made, and much more than that.”