Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1909. UNCIVILISED CIVIC INDIFFERENCE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7830, 24 June 1909, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1909. UNCIVILISED CIVIC INDIFFERENCE.

It is going on for three years since we first referred m these columns to the barbarous rcmissness of the average British municipal body with respect to civilised accommodation for women; and m so far as Ashburton was concerned, we suggested that a rest-room should be provided for girls - and women, as an instalment of the necessary reform. Something of an ama-' teurish and perfunctory nature was don© by the Borough Council m the way of enquiry and discussion, but there the matter ended with that body. Does the Council, we wonder, stand m the category of those municipal bodies concerning which Mr Bernard Shaw has lately been saying some characteristically vivid things m the Englishwoman, a magazine devoted to the interests of women ? In his vigorous and vivacious way, Mr Shaw says ' of a immicipal body of which he himself was a member for about six years, that " the unmentionable question of sanitary accommodation occupied a good deal of the time of the Borough Council. I invite the male reader to give his mind to this with some caro. The sumptuous public lavatories which now provide the poor man with the only palatial luxuries he ever hfos r.ieet two requirements, one of which cists him nothing; whilst the other costs him a penny. If this charge of a penny wore extended to the gratuitous accommodation, which is used perhaps a thousand times for every once of the other, there would bo an explosion of public indignation which would bring to its knees at once any municipal authority which dared to impose it. When it I was proposed that women should have free accommodation on the same terms as men, it was fiercely opposed and carried on for years. One councillor, I an enlightened man on other questions, passionately protested against ' this abomination,' as, m an access of horror, he described the projected lavatory. Another, when told that women de- [ manded the accommodation, urged that persons who so far ' forgot their j sex ' should not have anything provided for them at all !" Mr Shaw adds that another difficulty of the same nature 1 was exposed when the absence of sanitary accommodation for women employed by a firm m the borough was reported upon by an inspectress; but the Health Committee would not allow her to allude to the subject m their presence ! Perhaps the members of the Ashburton Borough Council will try to imagine what Mr Shaw would say, and could say with perfect justice, of their uncivilised civic indifference to their duty m this important matter. We may say that Mr Shaw has friends m Ashburton, and it is just possible he may visit this part of the world by-and-by. By that time the Borough Council may, of course, have done its duty m the matter; but, if not, we shall gladly give Mr Shaw a fairly free hand to say what he likes on the subject m these columns. In the meantime, the Mayor and his municipal brethren will no doubt enjoy m anticipation the pleasure, of Mr Shaw's playful literary attentions.