DR. BAKEWELL AND THE WOMEN'S POLITICAL LEAGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 33, 7 February 1894, Page 8

DR. BAKEWELL AND THE WOMEN'S POLITICAL LEAGUE.

(To the Editor.)

SlE,—I notice thab a meebing of the Auckland Women's Political League has_ passed a resolution or resolutions "censuring* me for stating in an article in the "Nineteenth Century " that 95 per cenb. of the population in New Zealand wore "adverse" or " opposed " to granting the franchise to •women. I have only vague reports to go by as the resolutions are nob published verbatim, and, of course, ib never occurred to these darlings thab ib mighb be fair and jusb to send me a copy of them, and ask me if I had anything to say for myself. With a beautiful feminine incapacity for justice, they rush into resolutions, which they are going to send direct to the editor of the "Nineteenth Century," "censuring" an article of whioh they have nob road one single line 1 This is the way we shall be governed now, by emotional creatures, who have not, and can never possess, the logical faculty. ■ • Permib me to say thab I never in any part of my article asserted anything so foolish as the statement imputed to me by the Women _. Political League; that I nowhere stated thab 95 per cenb. of bhe population of New Zealand were eibher "adverse," or "opposed" to bhe female franchise, or any words to that effect. The cablegram, of which I do not acknowledge the correctness, states thab I asserted that 95 per cenb. of the population did nob desire the extension of the franchise to women. I am quite prepared to stand by whab I wrote ab the time, bub I cannot quote or remember the exact words, and have nob even a rough copy of the article. If bhe people who are so ready to set up a shriek on the strength of a cablegram, will only wait until the article appears, they will bhen see how ridiculous bheir conducb has been. They will find bbc article to be a grave, dull, dreary narrative, without a spark of wib or humour in ib, and sbricrly impartial, lb is so differenb from my usual style of writing, that if it had been published, as I intended, under my norn de plume, no one would have recognised it as mino. VVhen I read ib over, I was so disgusted with ib that I would have thrown ib into the waste paper basket, had there been time to rewrite ib. There is nob a sentence in it written in what a female critic of mine called •« Bakoweli's naßty sneering way."— I am, etc.,

R. H. Bakewell, Karangahape Road, February 4th.

P.S.—lb is a curious thing, bub during the 21 years 1 havo been in New Zealand, I never knew any article published at Home Jjy a New Zealand colonist that was not assailed by a borrenb of abuse iv the colony unless ib were one mass of treacly praise of tho colony and its inhabitants. Colonials cannob bear the naked truth.