YEAR OF PROGRESS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 902, 20 February 1930, Page 9

YEAR OF PROGRESS

ANTI-VIVISECTIONISTS’ ANNUAL MEETING PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS A successful inaugurating year, in which the organisation had lived with - . in its income and increased its membership from 20 to 160, was reported at the first annual meeting of the j Auckland branch of the British Union ; for the Abolition of Vivisection, held last evening. The president, Mr. W, J. Connors, presided. Before reading the annual report, | the president sketched the history of the movement against vivisection since Dr. Samuel Johnson had first attacked it in his writings of 1761. A century later the practice had been -severely criticised by British medical journals. Francis Power Cobbe, the founder of the organised anti-vivisectionlst movement, had launched a spirited attack, and, so great was the popular outcry that, in 1875, the medical journals '-ad forgotten their earlier opinions and flown to the vivisectors’ defence. A Royal Commission had been set up to inquire into the question in 1876 and a Bill had been passed putting animal experimentation under* legal supervision. "In spite of this,” Mr. Connors continued, "people, if they realised what was going on behind the closed doors of laboratories, would immediately clamour for suppression of the practice. I believe that the cause of antivivisection, unimportant though it may seem to the uninformed, is the most important question before the civilised world today. In England* Parliamentary candidates are pledged to the cause, and members of the Eabour Cabinet are vice-presidents of the union.” Mr. Connors said there were 123 branches of the union in Great Britain, four in Australia, one in Tasmania and one in New Zealand. In Auckland, during the year, two public meetings had been held, when there had been informative lectures. A lecture had been prepared to be broadcast, but permission to put it on the air had been refused by the Radio Broadcasting Company, the excuse given being that "the subject was controversial.” The election of officers resulted as follows: —President, Mr. W. J. Connors: vice-presidents, Messrs. M. Walker and G. W. Wingfield; hon. secretary, Mr. R. H. Milburne; executive committee, Mesdames W. J. Connors, R. H. Milburne and I. Noble, Miss A. Trevithick, Messrs. H. F. Robinson, S. Eeah, J. Armstead and Ft. Tabuteau.