PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21193, 16 August 1940, Page 3

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN WOMEN’S TASK IN WARTIME Dear Friends and Fellow-members, After the Bulletin had gone to press there arrived, like a thunder bolt from a sky already dark with clouds, the news of the further extension of the European conflict. The thunderstorm is raging on, dragging more peaceful countries into its turmoil and the thoughts of the members of the International Council of Women go cut in sincere sympathy to those who know now the terrible meaning of war. We think with deep compassion of the National Councils in many countries so cruelly hit by the events of today and of yesterday and we wish we could assure them, in some other way than by mere words, that we feel their anguish and their sorrow as if they were our own. But we know that the ideals in which they believe will give them the strength and courage they need to go through the ordeal and we are certain that, come what may, they will remain what they have been—fountainheads of faith and hope Rise “Above Their Task” Centuries ago a statesman who lived during the renaissance period, declared that men were living “below their time.” Let us hope that the women of today will rise “above their task.” This task is a tremendous one. First of all. for the sake of their country, women must be ready to make every sacrifice which a nation has the right to ask from its children at a time of common peril. For more than fifty years we have been claiming equality of rights with our husbands and brothers; now the moment has come for us to take an equal share of their responsibilities. Whatever may be the place assigned to us by our duties, we must endeavour to be, as it were, a source of quiet fortitude. We must rise above the anxieties of the hour in order not only to sustain the courage of those around us, but also, as we are the guardians and givers of life, it is our task to bring up the generation of tomorrow, a task involving great responsibility at a time when women are often alone to bear its burdens. It is of infinite importance that the rising generation should grow up morally healthy and strong in order to be able to bring about that spiritual and moral revival which humanity needs. On the rock of the principles which we have taught them they will have to build a new social order founded on universal moral law, universally recognised, a new world order ensuring that treaties are respected, engagements carried out and the given word honoured.

Finally—and in spite of all they have had, and may yet have, to go through—women must not allow the fine spark of international solidarity alive in their hearts- to become extinguished, or the human bond linking the peoples together to be completely torn asunder. I am well aware that this means asking a great sacrifice from many in their present suffering, but it is a sacrifice that, they will have to make in order to enable their children’s children to live in a world more serene and beautiful than that in which it has been their own tragic fate to live and to suffer.

That is what I meant, dear friends, when I told you that women had not only to live up to their task but to rise above it. May they, always and everywhere, oppose their faith in the constructive forces to the forces of destruction now let loose; may they always remember that life only attains its full value if we are ready to sacrifice it for the sake of spiritual and moral causes that transcend life and make it worth living. May God help us all to understand where our duty lies and aid us to do it. MARTHE BOEL Baroness Boel Still in Belgium Since the receipt of Baroness Boel’s letter, it has been learnt that I.C.W. headquarters have been moved from Brussels to Geneva, and that Lady Nunburnholme wrote offering Baron and Baroness Boel hospitality in England. Lady Nunburnholme eventually managed to get in touch with their son, who replied that the day before the German occupation of Belgium, the Baron and Baroness decided to remain where they were. Since then no further news has been received of this courageous couple who were imprisoned by the Germans during the last war.