[Copy] of letter from Miss Moore, 40 Evelina Road, Toorak, Melbourne, Australia to Miss Courtney, Women’s International League, 55 Gower Street, London, W.C.1., dated 13th March, 1925.
Dear Miss Courtney,
Your letter of 23rd Nov. last raised the very interesting point of the statement of the objects of the W.I.L.P.F., as passed without discussion at Washington. We brought this matter up at our first meeting after the Christmas vacation, and the general feeling was that your protest was reasonable and that the resolution as passed is open to serious question as to its wisdom.
In our Society, even before we became a Section of the W.I.L.P.F. we have always been against asking members or would-be members to take a rigid pledge of any kind. Our feeling was that if any woman was against war sufficiently to join an [organization] so unpopular as ours, she must have a conviction of some kind on the subject, and that was quite enough to make her a welcome addition to our numbers. Our object all along has been to try to educate, and we have found that some who joined us in a lukewarm or half-hearted spirit have become very earnest and are now fully convinced pacifists. If people are required at the outset, to pledge themselves to an extreme position, there is the danger not only of frightening away enquirers, but also of checking quite serious pacifists who yet are not quite sure what position they might take up in an emergency.
What might be called a test position arose here in the year 1916-1917, when we had referenda on the subject of Military Conscription for service abroad. We decided that as a Society we would take no definite stand pro or con, as we knew our members were divided in opinion, and we did not want to wreck our permanent work on a passing political issue. The consequence was we kept those of our members who thought that Conscription for that war was a fair measure as well as those who opposed it, and worked vigorously against it. The latter were in the majority but did not wish to coerce the few for whom the pressure of public opinion was too strong. Should the same question arise now I am sure our members would be quite unanimous, because they have learnt in the meantime.
You will see that we are at one with you in your protest. We are not writing to Washington on the subject, as we think that what you have said will probably have carried the point of having this matter listed for open discussion at next Congress. Should this not be so, please feel at liberty to make any use of this letter which you may consider wise, or let me know whether in [page 2] in your judgment it would be advisable for us to write about it direct to Washington.
Thank you for papers dealing with the situation in Egypt, and the occupation of the Rhineland. We read these with interest, but naturally can add nothing to your knowledge of the subject.
Regarding your queries re Foreign Policy, Free Trade, Disarmament, Mandates and Education proposals, we have already written to Geneva on some of these points, and will deal with others as we have material available. Of course what we send would not be in time for inclusion in the first pamphlet. We might say that with regard to Free Trade there is not at present the slightest hope of such a policy being adopted here. We would suggest that the attitude of the countries not yet industrially developed should be carefully studied, as their position is so entirely different in this matter from that of the older settled countries. It should not be taken for granted that the rightness of a Free Trade policy is obvious to every candid thinker. It appeared to me that this was done at Zurich and I wrote a protest afterwards which was embodied in the 1919 report. Though personally in [favor] of Free Trade, I am by no means sure that most of our members are so. There is a good deal to be said from the protectionist point of view, especially in countries such as this, and it should be allowed its full weight.
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