WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM
12, Rue du Vieux-Collège, Geneva, Switzerland
December 28, 1927.
Dear Executive Member,
I have had a letter from Miss Courtney in which she raises some important points. She will probably follow up this letter with definite requests after the next meeting of the English Executive. Her present letter is dated December 22nd and is in answer to my letter giving the main results of the board of officers' meeting. She deals also with some other points.
1) The Joint Standing Committee of Women's International [Organizations]. This Committee nominated Mrs. Wootton, Dr. Lüders and Dr. van Dorp for the Consultative Economic Committee of the League of Nations. It has received notice from Princess Radziwil (liaison officer of the L. of N.) saying that the nationalities to which these women belong were already fully represented and asking the Joint Standing Committee to nominate women from the Balkan States. The Committee summoned a special meeting and the W.I.L. representative said that we must insist on the nomination of women whom we believe to be experts regardless of their nationality and that we refuse to nominate people simply because it is convenient to the League of Nations to have somebody from a particular country. The J.S.C. did not at this first meeting take this view and nominated Miss [Tekla Hultin] from Finland. At the next meeting of the Committee the members of the Committee had come round to the W.I.L. point of view and sent a letter to the Secretariat of the League of Nations protesting against this attempt to substitute nationality for expert knowledge in the case of women and saying that if nationality must be taken into consideration it would be better to do this in the case of the large number of men members who are appointed on commissions rather than in the case of the two or three women who are in question. A letter has also been received from the Secretariat by the J.S.C. inviting the nomination of women to visit the information department of the Secretariat. In this case it is a question of acquiring knowledge and the [page 2] J.S.C. suggested getting women from India, Bulgaria and Hungary. Suitable Indian women are known to the Committee but they do not know women in Bulgaria and Hungary. To save time Miss Courtney (our representative on the J.S.C.) has written to Madame [Karavélova] and Mrs. Vámbéry.
2) Joint Arbitration Campaign in the U.S.A. and Great Britain. The British W.I.L. wishes to have a simultaneous campaign in the two countries in support of an all-in arbitration treaty. Mrs. Biddle Lewis (Philadelphia) warmly supports the idea but thinks it is inadvisable for the initiative to be taken by the American W.I.L. and suggests that another [organization] should take the initiative. It is also thought best to have the initiative in England go forth from the Pilgrimage Committee. This Committee is very popular in both countries. It had a very good press and was boomed in America. Two very popular women, Lady Astor and Dame Edith Lyttleton are very keen about the proposal and Miss Ruth Morgan is prepared to push the plan in America. Mrs. Chapman Catt is having a big conference of women's [organizations] on the cause and cure of war in January and Mrs. Catt has been invited to take part and has cabled asking the invitation to be sent to the January Conference. This may produce a really big movement for arbitration in the two countries.
3) Time and place of next Executive Committee. The British Section disagrees very strongly with the proposal to postpone the discussion of the Constitution and to have the meeting in Lyons and wishes to register protest against it. They say that Miss Balch is coming over to Europe on purpose to discuss the Constitution and has particularly asked that the meeting should be held either in London, Paris or Geneva. The British Section would otherwise have urged that it be held in the north of Europe e.g., in Hamburg, Holland or Denmark so as to be accessible to the northern countries but if these northern countries are not convenient to Miss Balch, the British Section strongly urges that the Committee should be in Geneva where there is very much greater convenience for it. They consider that the journey to Lyons is extremely long and expensive for everyone and they think the Executive should be held in the place most convenient for transacting business and not where it is convenient to do propaganda. They think it absolutely essential that the Constitution should be taken up at the next meeting of the Executive and therefore that the Committee should be at the place selected by Miss Balch who is coming over for this very purpose. They also beg that the national sections should be consulted as to dates as Consultative Members have numbers of meetings and engagements ahead which they cannot break. [page 3]
4) International business. The English Executive met on December 17th in special session to consider the Minutes of the International Executive in September and they decided to protest formally against the action taken by Madame Duchêne and Fräulein Heymann with regard to the speeches made by Mrs. Swanwick and Mrs. Larsen-Jahn at the Maison Internationale in September. They request that this business be brought up at the next Executive and the Minute on the subject [canceled].
The Minutes of the English Executive meeting have not come to me yet but as I am leaving at the beginning of next week, I think it is advisable to send you the contents of Miss Courtney's letter at once.
Yours sincerely,
Comments