OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 May 1940, Page 8

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

WOMEN’S INSTITUTES (To the Editor). Sir —Permit me through your columns to make a strong appeal to the Women’s Institutes of the Dominion. There is no need to stress the extreme gravity of the international situation. The responsible heads of the British Government and of all sections of the Empire and of our Allies are urging every man and woman to give at this moment their utmost of assistance in work and resources and to make every sacrifice to assist our armies’ supreme efforts. I appeal to the Women’s Institutes to sacrifice their great general meeting fixed for July next and contribute the aggregate funds so saved (in the neighbourhood of £4,000) to some part of the total war effort. We all kno\V that, if the Allies fail to win, there will thereafter be no Women's Institutes here or elsewhere in the Empire. We know too, that now is the moment to act. This meeting is not due to be called again for two years. The agenda for this year, while of importance to the organisation internally, contains nothing (not even the revision of the constitution) that cannot be held over till better times. The decision to sacrifice participation in the meeting is one foi- each individual Institute to make (some have already so decided), and it can then write to Headquarters and direct that such money as it may have already paid over be transferred to a fund for war purposes. It is the responsibility of the Institutes in such an emergency to express their individual will. In a recent broadcast the French Prime Minister declared that men and women in all parts of the world are coming to realise that this struggle directly affects their own countries, homes and lives., Like him I pray that they (and we members of the Women's Institutes) may not do so too late. — Yours, etc., A. E. JEROME SPENCER, Founder of W.l.'s in N.Z. Rissington, May 24.