“WOMEN RULE THE ROOST”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 955, 24 April 1930, Page 9

“WOMEN RULE THE ROOST”

WAR TO BE OUTLAWED “We women rule the political roost at home —and as long as we do we shall be intent on making the men realise that we won’t have war.” So said Miss Dora West, late secretary of the League of Nations Union, London, when speaking before a large audience at the annual meeting of the Auckland branch of the I.eague of Nations Union at the Lewis Eady Hall last evening. Miss West went on to say that child was the father of .the man and it was only by training children to the realisation of the horrors of war that we would eliminate the possibility of future catastrophies. Warfare in the future, she proceeded, would be too awful to contemplate. Our laboratories were hothouses of lethal materials that would annihilate millions. If ever war was declared in the future London would be wiped out in a night. “The thought is simply ghastly,” said Miss West, “and it is only by the co-operation of the nations that war will be outlawed. Things which years ago were classed as necessary evils have been wiped out; why not wipe out war, the greatest of all evils?” Miss West spoke of the small beginnings of tile League and what it had accomplished since its inception. Some of the finest brains were associated with the movement, but it was only through the efforts of everyone that success would be achieved. Mr. T. Todd, of Gisborne, mentioned that this was a critical period—the end of an old civilisation and the beginning of a new. It was the custom In the past to settle our disputes with war. In the future we would settle them by discussion. The League was a great family movement in which every nation large or small had equal rights. It was this equality of the nations that would finally eradicate war for all time. At the conclusion, the Rev. H. K. Arclidall, headmaster of King's College, moved a vote of thanks. He said that his sentiments coincided with those of the speakers, and he agreed that it was the correct training of our youth that would he the deciding factor in abolishing war.