A Woman, Confident and Inspiring
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" FROM behind the serried ranks of despondent men arrives—a ,woman; confident and inspiring." Rarely can that powerful utterance of Prior's have been so strikingly justified as it was at Margate, during the recent conference of the National Road Transport Federation. At business sessions where men presided and lectured, in which, in effect, only men intervened, a good deal of excellent discussion developed. All of it was useful, that none can deny; it was no doubt provocative of a good deal of thought, directed along the right lines. It may do some good.
Criticisms have, however, been made, with which we cannot entirely agree, that in view of the impending crisis which the industry must shortly face, there was too much of the academic and insufficient preparation of a practical and positive nature, designed to anticipate and meet that crisis.
Neither of these two faults can be found with that part of the business session in which the powerful participant was Mrs. H. M. Borrowdale. It was directed towards the presentation of the Government's programme of nationalization, and it produced Action.
Mrs. Borrowdale's approach to her subject was typically feminine, in that it was practical. The appeal to her hearers was direct.
She came prepared with a resolution, reported already in these columns. That resolution, after very slight modification, was passed unanimously. Then, cautious of allowing it to be passed to the secretariat for subsequent action, she pressed for immediate results, and obtained them in the shape of a committee or national council of women to press on with the campaign against the nationalization of road transport.
"Confident and inspiring" she set an example which the superior male members of the industry might well emulate and, if possible, surpass.