MO TUE EDITOR OR TIIS "SPECTATOR.") • may interest your
Free-trade readers to know that a remarkably successful meeting was held at Spencer House on Thursday, June 1st, by the Women's Free-Trade Union, a body composed of Unionist Free-trade women as well as of Liberal women. The occasion was the second annual meeting of the Association, the first having been held last year at Devonshire House. This year the Executive Committee determined that the members of the Association being all women, only women should speak at the annual meeting, and that no men should be invited to be present. Even the representatives of the Press were women, and the spectacle of a large meeting of women (the attendance must have reached a total of between three and four hundred), on an afternoon in the middle of the London season, all listening keenly to Free-trade speeches, was significant of the bold which Free-trade principles have obtained on thoughtful women of the wealthier classes. Excellent speeches were delivered by Mrs. Herbert Gladstone, chairman of the Association, who took the chair, and by Lady Frances Balfour and Mrs. Bryce, while Mrs. Bamford Slack, one of the hon. secretaries, read the report, and Lady Alice Shaw-Stewart (in the absence of the hon. treasurer) made a financial statement. Lady Con- stance Hatch and Lady Maclaren also spoke. I will not intrude further upon your space by giving the details of the good work performed by the Association, but I should like to mention that its special mission is to undertake educational work among women. Meetings and lectures are held to this end, and organisers are sent into country districts who undertake house-to-house visits for educational purposes. Further funds are needed to carry on the work effectively, and it is hoped that all women Free-traders will continue to sup- port an Association in which women of every shade of political opinion—Conservative, Unionist, and Liberal—are banded together in the defence of the principles of Free-trade. Con- tributions should be sent to the Hon. Treasurer, Women's Free-Trade Union, 8 Victoria Street, S.W.—I am, Sir, &c.,
UNIONIST FREE-TRADER.
[We are delighted to hear so good a report of the Women's Free-Trade Union. Its members have shown that those whose views are in conflict on other questions can yet combine loyally to work against the Chamberlain policy, and to take united political action in defence of Free-trade. Had the Unionist Free-traders in the House of Commons been able to act in a similar spirit, we should not now be faced with the prospect of another year of anti-Free-trade government,—a year in which it is only too probable that grave injury may be done to the unity of the Empire.—En. Spectator.)
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