[Princess Mary opened Mary Sumner House, 49 years after Mrs Sumner began the work that became the Mothers’ Union. It now had 428,000 members, the Princess was told.]

THE opening of the Mary Sumner House, the headquarters of the Mothers’ Union, has drawn attention to the ever-growing strength of this admirable society. It now has over four hundred thousand members. It is the largest women’s society in the country, and the strongest organized body except the Labour Party. Before all other things, the Mothers’ Union — the majority of its members belong to the less fortunate classes — stands for the sanctity of marriage, the family and the home. We rejoice in these days when institutions that form the bases of Christian civilization are threatened by Bolshevist propagandists and well-to-do immorality and indifferentism, that this phalanx of women, with first-hand knowledge of the problems of workaday life, should be standing shoulder to shoulder for their defence. It is indeed a matter for rejoicing that the members of the Mothers’ Union now have votes which they can use for the preservation of the institutions that they cherish.

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