From letter of Mrs. Laura Hughes Lunde, 25-2-1920.
Private and Confidential.
Dear Miss Balch,
I received your letter of February 4th, yesterday, containing the report from Mrs. Prenter. It's awfully funny, for I spent January in Toronto and tried in vain to find any of the pacifists who had stood for peace during the war, who knew of the formation of a Canadian branch. All anyone had heard was an article which had been in one of the papers attacking Mrs. Kantel as a pacifist. But Mrs. Kantel had had letters sent to the other papers stating that she was not a pacifist, had never been one, and giving a long list of her war work.
As to Mrs. Prenter, if I wanted to be mean all I would need to do is to send that report of hers to Canada. She is so careful not to be known as a pacifist. Further more the International League group had nothing to do with the election of the Farmer-Labor government. Mrs. Kantel is a Liberal and worked for them. Mrs. Prenter works for everyone that will give her a boost. In 1917 she tried to sell out the Labor Party to the Liberals and thus give us the worst blow that could be given us. Mrs. Rose Henderson was staying with Mother while I was at home, and she has no more use for Mrs. Prenter that she had two years ago. She has left Montreal for good, and is at present making Toronto the center of her activities, but she spend her time [traveling] helping on the Labor Party and the Labor Church movement. Mrs. Dixon wrote me recently that she was not in Winnipeg this winter but was spending it in the Western States. I don't care about Mrs. Prenter getting international fame as she desires through to do through the League, but it is a pity that she ever got connected with her, she is too shifty. Why during the war she would not even vote against conscription in the Toronto Woman's Council. As to Mrs. Kantel, while I was in Toronto a pacifist friend of mine put through a resolution in a woman's Liberal assembly, of which Mrs. Kantel is president, against compulsory military training, and Mrs. Kantel went for her afterward saying she had no business to do that for it had compromised her (Mrs. Kantel). Now do you think you can ever have a strong organization with women who do not dare to let the fact that they are pacifists be known?
The new Ontario government is an improvement but it is not a pacifist one, the Farmers are in the majority, and they are not even sure that a minimum wage and an eight hour day are good things. Of course we are trying to educate them.
Mrs. Horton of Ottawa, did a lot more for C.O.'s than Mrs. Prenter did, and all Canadian C.O.'s were released six months before the Labor government was elected. They were practically all out last April, there was no law passed, but all sentences were reduced to 6 months, which meant that they all got out.
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