The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1918. THE MARCH OF THE WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 13, 15 January 1918, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1918. THE MARCH OF THE WOMEN.

for the cause that lacks witiatanoe. For the wrong that needs reaittatun, For the future in the distanoe, And the good that toe sen '4a.

Two recent cable messages testify to the rapid progress of the wide movement for the enfranchisement of women—a movement that, by reason of the lead we gave other countries twenty-four years ago, has a special interest for New Zealanders. One message reported a decisive majority in the House of Lords for the principle of votes for women, the other the endorsement of the principle by the American House of Representatives.. The House of Lords' decision means that the long battle in Britain has been won by the women. The hill embodying the reform, which was passed by the House of Commons last year, and is now before the House of Lords, originally contained the proposals for electoral reform drawn up by the Speaker's Conference, a product of the war in which all parties were represented. The original clau3e' providing for the enfranchisement of uWomen, which seems to .have.., been =■ ao cepted by the House without radical alteration, proposed that the Parliamentary vote should be given to any woman on the local government register, to the wife of any man on that register, and to any woman who was a university graduate, the age of enfranchisement being thirty. This falls a good way short of the full measure of enfranchisement enjoyed by New Zealand women, but it jwas estimated that it would add five or sis! million women to the Parliamentary register. One of the things to be put to the credit side of the war is the impetus it has given to political reform. The House of Commons accepted the principle of female suffrage by the huge majority of 387 to 57, and the debate and the icbmnients of the newspapers showed what destruction the war work and sacrifices of the women of Britain had wrought in the ranks of the anti-suffra-gists. Mr. Asquith, the greatest figure among the "antis," who had previously confessed to conversion by what women had done and therefore deserved, went into the "aye" lobby with others who had stoutly opposed the reform. Some

of those who were not entirely converted openly bowed to circumstances. Sir F. E. Smith, for instance, after admitting that the "physical force" argument, on which lie had hitherto

relied, had been broken down by the war, said he had a more practical consideration to advance for hie change of mind, his conviction that, whichever ■way lie voted, women were going to get the vote. The "Spectator," previously a strong opponent, implied that it retained its abstract objections to woman's suffrage, but in the face of so strong and popular a desire to give women the vote it could not continue its opposition. "To reeist such a rush of feeling is simply to want to carry on the Government of the country in circumstances of perpetual dissatisfaction and unrest. The time has come to yield, as the Duke of Wellington yielded on the great Reform Bill." Truly the women of Britain have established the right to vote. They have suffered heavy bereavement without loss of will to win. They have endured many kinds of hardship and peril without complaint. They have responded magnificently to the call for labour of all kinds to set men free for the Army, and have shown that there is hardly anything in industry that they cannot do. .Their work with liHnd and brain has swept aside the argument that phyeicnl and mental inferiority rightly chut them out of the polling booth. And if any further argument for the reform is needed, it has been supplied by Sir John Simon, who said in thp House that the industrial problem would be more than before a women's problem, arid Ihe solution could not in justice be attempted by a Parliament elected by exclusively male constituencies.

The women march in many other countries. One of the most giftp:! of Ximv Zealand women, Miss Jessie Mackay. in whom thp poet and the hoi'ial reformer nre combine.!, describes 10IT as ''undeniably the Annus Mirabilis for jwoTnen," and remarks tha.t "in forward

countries men are giving women .bask their own with both hands and such eagerness that it is hard for the annalist to keep pace with the times." The extension of the franchise to women was part of the declared programme of the Russian revolution. The franchise has been promised to the women of Canada, and as an instalment the right to vote was given to relatives of men at the front. There has also been provincial extension of the reform. Universal franchise has been won in Holland, which would seem to include women. In the United States the army fighting for the franchise has never been so strong, and in securing a majority in the House of Representatives for ite principle it cms won a notable victory. For thirty years suffragists have been striving to get Congress to pass such an amendment to the Constitution, but this is the first tima they have succeeded. Under the Constitution women may vote at Congressional elections if they have the right to vote in their States, and in several States they have won this right. The reformers can point to backward Mexico as setting an example, for Mexican women may now vote for the National Assembly. Even in Germany, where the Junker pushes women off the footpath and doubtless subscribes to the doctrine of the Baron in ''The Caravaners." thnt a woman ought to have a baby every year; it keeps her down — even in Germany .women are moving for political rights. A petition in favour of the franchise refers to the Government's appeal to women as well as men for fresh sacrifices for the Fatherland, an.l to the promises of political reform. The Reichstag is reminded of what is being done in England, of currents in Prance, and of the enfranchisement of women in Australia, Canadian provinces, and American States, and several European countries. Last year both majority aiv.t minority sections of the Socialist party supported reform, but the other parties opposed it. Victory for Germany would postpone female suffrage indefinitely; defeat may bring it very near. When the Prussian woman bas a vote the Baron will feel that the Inner citadel has fallen.