WOMEN AND THE FRANCHISE.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 200, 23 August 1919, Page 20

WOMEN AND THE FRANCHISE.

NEW ZEALAND'S LEAD. INTERESTING REMINISCENCES. England has granted to women the right to sit in the House of Commons. New Zealand is also making a belated effort to remove tne restriction in tins direction under which the women citizens of this country have lain so long. Although New Zealand led the van in granting the franchise, to women, the right to sit as members in the House was denied them, and it is to this faut more than anything else that the apathy shown by the women in public un~air.it is chieliy due. They have found, alter many painful disillusions that promises before polling day and performances after do rarely tally. The average woman has come to think that politics are a thing in which she has no vital concern. This attitude has reacted badly on our public life, and has allowed it to fall more or loss into the hands of those who look to it as a profession and a means of livelihood, not as a great duty to the future. The ignorance that is shown amongst the women societies ot the struggle by which they obtained the light to stand as full citizens, which s<> many of them value so lightly, in deplorable. It was in tin- year 1S():(. nn September filth, that the right of everr

woman over twenty-one yeiirs of age to vote HI Parliamentary elections was :;nui!'-d. When we look back and think of the outcry that was raised by the opponents of" the movement anil the

Mguments used we see that they lire similar to those being used at present to damp woman's enthusiasm for fuller citizenship, and which are even in late , , day repeated in our newspaper .or-

rcspondonee by masculine crit'u-s whose intellectual development has .eased quite • arly in life. fJreat evils wen- predicted by the opponents of woman franchise. It was said that public credit would be shaken, women would neglect their homes and children, socks and stockings would he lindiirned, and it would sow dissension between husband and wife. It was nl*o Raid that women would not use the vote. The first election proved the fallacy of this statement, for S2* per cent of the women recorded their vote 'I'!,- first effect of women at the polling booth was to stamp out the old-time rowdyism. The closing of hotel bars on polling day was also the dirce! result nf the enfranchisement of women, and the sight of drunken men rolling up to the polling stations to Mjte ecasi .1 to affront the public gnzi , . COMIXC OF THE FfIAKCHISK. It v.us Mrs Muller. the wife of Dr. Muller, Provincial Secretary of Nelson, '.vim initiated the Women's Suffrage movement of New Zealand. She wrote letters advocating it in the public newspapers. This was as far back as I Sfi», ami she also issued an appeal to the men of New Zealand. Thinkers like Sir William 1"ok, Sir John Hall. Mr Alfred Sa unders. Dr. James Wallis, and many others hud their minds stirred by these I Appeals. T.ittle seemed to come of it,

but nearly a-quarter of a century later Mary Muller, in the culm sunset of a noble life, knew that the linest men in New Zealand had listened. THE RAISING OF THE BANNER. It was Dr. James Wallis who first raised the suffrage banner in 1878. In 1879, Sir John Kail lieing Premier, Dr. Wallis returned to the charge, and won the co-operation of Mr John ISallance. The idea came up in the House in successive sessions, only to bo thrown aside, 'then came Mrs Mary Leavitt, one of-the world's missionaries of the Women's Christian Temperance Union to wtart the organisation in New Zealand. February, 18S0. saw the New Zealand W.C.T.U. formally established throughout the colony, and in this organisation the Woman's Franchise movement took h prominent place. In ISB7, Mrs K. W. Sheppard was appointed franchise superintendent, and .■•he wns ideally-fitted for the work, gifted with a charming personality, line mental gifte, and -inglenesa of purpose." and to her, of all women is due the honour of the advancement of the women of the country. For seven years she toiled, the liivt effort was the organising of petitions, the first one being but short and stnting that •When the Electoral Dill lame before the House, it should lie worded «o as to include women." Thus was signed by the oUicere of the W.C.T.U. When nothing fame of this effort Mrs Shcpparrt organised her forces, and a monster petition was prepared to be signed by every woman over 21 years of age; 10.000 signatures were obtained, and again the motion was last. In 1981. undaunted by the successful hostility of the Legislative Council, the franchise department of the W.C.T.U. redoubled it* olTorts. and in ISO 2 tlie women worked ;i- never before, securing J0.J74 signa-

l lire*, hi Parliament the intention was Dm most absorbing one of the session. T;t :i.r.!.-e met on .him' -J"i<l. <ir John Hall had prepared a bill, but lindiiu Mr I'.allance hud include! Woman"* Suffrage in the Electoral Hill, it was decided that iit would be iietter to support, the Governmcnl measure. After much opponii lion, largely through the illness of Mr V'.nllanee and the opposition of Mr Sedilon. tlie motion was lost again. i Mrs Shcppard lost no time in vain re-

f.-rets; i-ure of a majority in the Lower HiiiiM*. she ret xhotli securing enough public opinion to storm the stronghold of the Legislative Council. Large and • nthusia.-lir meetings were held, pamphlets rircuhited, and when the petition came hi it proved to lie tlie largest ever Munrd in the Australasian colonied. and contained 31,372 signature-, nearly onethirl of the womanhood of the colony. WOMAN SUFFRAGE PARSES. After a stormy passage the bill passed both Houses, and on September ]!>U>. H.i:!. Mr Seddnn forwarded to Mrs Shcppard the following message:— "The l.leitoral Bill assented to by his Excellency the (iovernor at twelve to-day, and tlie women of New Zealand were enfranchised. People who nrc not capable of thinking have been heard to say.

'■Women have done vflry little with the vote." If tlie«e words mean that there is no separate women's party, as there ..- in England, they are true, for the en-

franchised women's social unit has 'been the family; and humanity has been her family. Thirty-three Acts directly and indirectly of benefit to women and children have been gained. The cloeing , ot hotels on polling day, infants' life protection, Widows Pension Act (widows with .children), the Summary Separation Act, Scientific Temperance in schools, alcoholic liquor not to be cold to persons under 21 years of age, sale and smoking of cigarettes under 15 year 3, Kepeal of the CD. Acts, Testators Family Maintenance Act, Old Age Pensions Act (as a right, not a charity), Workers' Homes, District Nurses, Maternity Homes, Shop Aseistants Acts, and. many others.