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MRS. SHEILA YOUNG TO SPEAK

International

A PUBLIC reception and tea
will be held here Sunday, March
§, at 2 p.m., in ‘Pender Auditorium
Canteen, 339 West Pender, to
celebrate International Women’s
Day, itewas announced this week
by the International Women’s
Day Committee of Vancouver.

International Women’s Day on
March 8 commemorates the 43rd
anniversary of the organization
of women’s cooperation through-
out the world.

Guest speaker at the local re-
ception will be Mrs. Sheila Young
of North Vancouver. <A short

Women’s Day
tea planned for March 8

program will follow her address.

“The significance of women’s
participation in the general move-
ment for peace and security can-

not be overestimated,” a commit-
tee statement says. “Women play
a vital role ‘in combatting the
threat of war., For this reason
we hope that there will be a re-
cord turnout at the meeting on
March 8 to hear Mrs. Young, who
is active in many fields of work
and was a delegate to the Vienna
Congress of the Peoples for
Peace.” .

ONLY 568 BEFORE WAR.

New Poland has places
for 28,000 in creches

EVERY YEAR a steady im-
provement is to be seen in the
health, social and living condi-
tions of the Polish people.
year, new nursery schools,
creches, preventoria and health,
centres are opened in towns and
villages and, in particular, great
achievements can be seen in the
sphere of mother and child wel-
fare.

Every

New health centres for the ex-

WOMEN. WHO WORK
Eighty-hour
working week

IN. HER latest booklet, Wo-
men Who. Work, Grace Hutchins °
‘deals primarily; with |the U.S.
-seéne. Nevertheless, there is a
lot of interesting material in it
for progressive Canadian women.
's Between home and job, Miss
Mutchins. shows women. work
more than 80 hours a week. One
out of every three workers in the
U.S. is a woman, but in 1950 the
vannual median wage for men fac-
‘tory workers was $3,117, for wo-
amen it was.$1,285. Lower wages
for women are being used to pull
down wages for men as well. The
‘result is that, increasingly, both
men and women are required to
work today to maintain minimum
standards for a family.

If there is double burden for
women workers, it is trebled for
Negro women, who’ face discrim-
ination both ‘as Negroes and wo-
men,

In 1949, latest year for which
such figures are available, the an-
nual median wage for Negro wo-
mien workers was $654, for white
‘women it was $1,615 — a differ-
‘ence’ of 147 percent.

Although women form such a
-Jarge section of the labor move-
ment they are scarcely represent-
ed in the leadership of unions, es-
pecially in top leadership. “The
labor movement in this country
(the U.S.) is still run by men,”
Miss Hutchins writes.

ih

clusive use of mothers and child-
ren are being set up at a rapid
pace. In 1952 alone, the number of
beds in children’s hospitals in-
creased to more than “two-and-a-
half times that of the 1950 figure.
The number of beds in prevent-

oria rose threefold and more than

2,000 beds are reserved for child-
ren in health resorts. On the aver-
age, a benefit
from summer camps every year.

million children

Of great importance for safe-
guarding the children’s health is;
the network of children’s clinics,
the number of which has more
than dotibled since 1949. In ad-
dition, 13 specialised clinics have
been set up in industrial centres,
among others in Silesia, Lodz and

Warsaw, in which nearly all fields
of medicine are represented.

The medical attention given to
mothers and children in rural
areas is constantly improving. A
basic role in this is played by the
maternity wards, unknown in the
old Poland, and trained midwives
who are now in nearly all villages.
A considerable percentage of
peasant women are also able to
use the maternity wards in district
hospitals.

* * ee.

THE NUMBER of children’s
clinics in Poland is three times
higher than the pre-war figure,

» and the number of medical chairs,

professors and “lecturers has risen
fivefold. Various child welfare
centres are under the constant
Supervision of the most eminent
specialists.

Another sphere of mother anr
child welfare is the system of
well-equipped creches. Before the
war there wer only 568 places for
children in creches throughout ©
the whole of Poland, but today, *
there are 28,000 places in per-
manent district and factory
creches and the number is con-
stantly growing.

Millions of children and babies
are examined and inoculated
against TB every year and hund-
reds of thousands are ‘covered by
the campaign against rickets con-
ducted by the state.

‘

.

* whether the Rosenbergs —

‘Stop this
sentence’

“STOP THIS dreadful sentence
from being carried out!’ cried
Karen Morley, American stage
and screen star, to a ‘Toronto
Massey Hall audience of 1,500 last
week, which gathered on 96-hour
notice to urge that President EHis-
enhower reconsider and grant
clemency, to Ethel and Julius
Rosenberg. |

“This savage, fantastic sen-
tence,” said Miss Morley, “seems
to smack of horror beyond all
sanity. I plead with you to do
something, big or small, not only
to help save the Rosenbergs from
the electric chair, but to help Am-
erica reach sanity.

“T have come over here from
an America of horrible movies, of
bubble-gum and _ witchhunts, of
screaming headlines and atom
bombs. I didn’t come to. say
are in-
nocent or guilty. The EPOTEaEE
-thing is: they must live.”

WORLD PARLEY IN JUNE

Canada invited to send
I5 delegates to congress

WHEN AN expected 900 dele-
gates from nearly every country
gather in Copenhagen for the
World Congress of Women, June
5+12, place will be saved for 15
Cana¢ian delegates.

Among the many Canadian wo-
men’s organizations invited to
send representatives is ‘the Con-
gress of Canadian Women, whose
members _ are particularly con-
cerned with the main problems
to be raised at the world .con-
gress: adyancing the rights of
women, protecting the children
and the home, and working for
prevention of war and develop-
ment of peaceful relations among
nations.

Danish women are already pre-
paring for the congress, with the
three largest Danish women’s or-
ganizations acting as_ hostesses.
They are engaging the largest
available exhibition grounds in’
the Danish capital for a display
and bazaar of~ arts and _handi-
crafts of women of all lands to
which Canadian women are being’
invited to contribute typically
Canadian arts and _ handicrafts,

as well as photos showing the life ~
.of Canadian women

iand_ their
families.

The call to the congress, which
is being sponsored by the Wo-
men’s International Democratic
Federation, declares:

“We who give life and who
bring up our children have al-
ways played our part through our
work, in the building of civiliza-
tion. To make our full contribu-

‘tion as mothers, workers and citi-

zens to the creation of a better

life, we must possess complete
political, economic and_ social
rights.

“This is why in the countries
where these rights have not been
granted, women are demanding
both the possession of their rights

GOV'T STALLS IN HOUSE OF LORDS

British women crowd House for
‘equal work-equal pay’ debate

Introduces ni

‘A bill to provide equal pay for
men and women for equal work
was introduced in the provincial
legislature last week by Mrs.
Laura Jamieson (above), one of

the two CCF members for Van-
couver Centre.

Known as the Equal Pay Act,
the bill would also ‘provide for
inspectors to hear complaints of
non-compliance and for a maxi-
mum fine of $100 for non-com-
pliance.

WOMEN crowded men: out of
the public gallery of the House of
Lords recently to hear the peers
discuss for the first time in many
years the question of equal pay
for women.

There was not a solitary man
in the Strangers’ Gallery when
Lord __ Pethick - Lawrence,
worked with the suffragettes in
their ‘“yotes for women” cam-
paign 40 years ago, asked -the
Churchill government to state its
policy and intentions.

“This is one of the last few
pockets of unequal status which
still remain,” he said, and com-
mented that another pocket was
the exclusion of women from the
House of Lords.

The proposal meant that where
a woman was doing identical
work to a man, or similar work
and giving equal results she
should be paid the rate for the
job.

Lord Pethick-Lawrence reject-
ed the suggestion that the prin-
ciple could not be implemented
on grounds of economy, and that
inflation would take place if it
were.

If the change were pkbuant
about in stages the cost would
not be more than $3 million in
the first year.

Lord Burden said the govern-
ment could set a good example
and concede the rate for the job
in the Civil Service. He ae uevee

who -

and the means of exercising thet.
The dearest wish of all wong
to live in peace and friendshiP
with all the peoples of the wo?

“They are determined that
children shiall be safeguard
against the horrors of wats”
extermination.

“War, already a terrible reali
for the women of Korea; *,
Nam and Malaya, threatens 1
stroy the whole world. of

“Women everywhere are sec
all their hopes for the future”
dangered, as war preparations
crease and military bases are 5
up in many countries. For a
lions of families the arms 4
is bringing with it a lower stan
ard of living, unemployment | .
poverty.”

All interested individuals
organizations may obtain im
mation from the Congress 0 ra
adian Women, 28 Sultan _ ‘St
Toronto 5, Ontario..

CCW to set. up
research bureau

IN VIEW OF the need 2
actual knowledge regarding
lation affecting working wom sl
(such as equal: pay for ©!
work, day nurseries), B.C: Pe of
incial council of Conaian {0
Canadian Women has decid yeh
establish. a “Bureau of Reg
on the Problems of W9
Women.”

This decision was reached
the last regular meeting of ont”
CCW provincial council. Ad
mittee to investigate the d
shortage in hospitals was alae
up

The CCW has written vanedl
ver City Council urging imm a
ate steps be taken to se pole :
Little Mountain: housing proe

ded
of

and

all parties were fully commit
to ‘the principle, and on oe
entitled to ask why had t ie
press. will of parliament al
nored. go
Lord Chorely urged the & Re
ernment tg remove an ina cS
which had been ‘all too ay ere
blot on the national honor: ihe
they had a rankling sore neat
heart of the body politic.
But the three peers are
vain, for the Earl of
claimed for the government:
Bent to judge the time 2” ic
ner, “in present economic ©
stances,” in which the prin

could be put into force.

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