For Peace and Freedom

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 896, 13 February 1930, Page 10

For Peace and Freedom

WOMEN’S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

(Written for THE SUN) IN 1919, wlien a war-weary world laid down its ai*nis and turned its thoughts to the ways of peace, many organisations were born with their object in the prevention of war. But the organisatipn whose inception ante-dates all these, and whose accomplishments are known and appreciated in every part of the world, is the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. The League was started in 1915. It had among its early members such famous women as Eva, Gore Booth, Evelyn Sharp, Olive Schreiner, Margaret Bondfield, Jane Addams, Maude Royden and Crystal McMillan.

In the war-mad period of 1915-16, these women were ridiculed as irresponsible idealists, and their aims were often frustrated by prejudice. In their initial meeting, the founders expressed sympathy for the general suffering “because the mass of people in each country believed that they were fighting in defence, and not in aggression.”

The first conference of the League was held at The Hague, but only two Englishwomen were present, because of the fact that no others could get passports from England. Miss Helen Ward, in a review of a recently published history of the League, says:—“The findings have almost a prophetic prophecy. When in 1918 an exhausted world began to feel its way out of chaos, it might have been observed that President Wilson's fourteen points bore a striking resemblance to the resolutions agreed to at the Women’s International Congress in 1915.” Travelling from country to country, preaching the ideal of peace, holding meetings, distributing literature —- this was the work of the members of the league during the war period. The great mass meeting iu Hyde Park, and the women's peace pilgrimage in 1926, were among its post-war activities. The members took a very prominent part in the activities of the peace crusade early last year. Practically all the women’s organisations in Great Britain joined the crusade, including the Women’s National Council and the Women’s Suffrage Alliance. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom would certainly have had representation on the deputation which waited on- the Prime Minister of Great Britain and other leaders at the naval conference last week. The W.I.L.P.F. was founded to work for peace and freedom throughout the

world, and it has consistently lived up to its ideals. It is entirely free from politics, and its activities are manifold. Such matters as industrial conditions for women. and child workers, traffic in opium and dangerous drugs, slavery, forced labour, white slave traffic, compulsory military training, and boy conscription, engage its attention. The international president is Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago, and the general secretary is Miss Mary Sheepshanks, Geneva. The league has sections ill 26 countries, and corresponding groups in 15. Here in New Zealand there is an active section, founded early in the war period. The members of this section feel that an important work is ready to the hand of New Zealand women desirous of acting on Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s exhortation to work for peace. The abolition of compulsory military training is their definite aim. The following letter was sent by a joint peace council, consisting of representatives of several different organisations, including the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and a copy has been received by the local section of the league, with the request that it be given publication in the Press:

“We beg to draw attention to the fact that although the Governments of the following countries —Holland, France, Poland. Switzerland, New Zealand, Yugoslavia have signed and ratified the Paris Pact, they continue to imprison men for refusing to undertake service for war, which the Paris Pact renounces as an instrument of national policy. We urge that those Governments, in order to prove their sincerity, should immediately release all prisoners confined for the offence of refusing military service.” M. B. SOLJAK.