YOUTH AND THE VOTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 128, 2 June 1927, Page 14

YOUTH AND THE VOTE.

PRIVILEGE LIGHTLY VALUED. 1 SEX AND THE HUSTINGS. ' i ARE WOMEN" HANDICAPPED? ! •'I he average voting woman of twenty- ' cue has iii-t as much gumption as the I average young man of the same ase," said a hri'.'h: young modern miss to a ''Star" j reporter who.was trying to find out what | w.,- thought of the controversy at Home! ■ •■•.".forr.ii'str the proposal to give every 1 woman l.i iwynty-one a vote, thus put-' ti;._' them on an equality with men., "You have no idea, of the sl'ender mental) make-up of many of the young men of to-Jay," she continued. "They talk a lot about frivolous flappers, but I really! don": think they are eire whit more', fci'atu-r-brained.'' In order not to desnoy the sequence of ideas the reporter did nor interject that he had suspected there were such J'jung men in the community. "Seriously." continued the champion ci the young women, "1 don't think a l"t of us, ai-tj terribly keen about this jolly old vote basinet, but if you give it' t<) the men I don't :-ee how in the name of common fairne&s y> u can refuse it. to the wfiinen. Since women have been' £'11112 into nusinesa they have come out] of their and they have found out; through actually competing against the! "lords of creation' in office and factory i that the boasted superiority of the male mentality is often mere tosh. The work that young women are doing in ortices! atid factories is quite as efficient as that! of nio~t young men, and in many cases' the young women are most certainly! inure brainy than their male colleagues of tiie -tame age. I a?k you, what sort ■ of statesmanship would you expect from 1 the usual sort of young man of twenty-1 one you meet in Queen Street':'" How it Works Out. j Then >he grew confidential. "Except] in i-ertain cases, such as the liquor probion:. and matters where her sex is i specially concerned, the fact that the j ■ttomen have the vote does not s-eriously j aifrvz politics. I quite believe that in nine cases out of ten the number of Votes in a household is simply increased -—not varied. I mean to say that the average head of the house, instead of ! having one vote, has two, three or four, according to the number of women voters the family contains. That is my candid (•pinion of the way the use of the franchise works out in actual practice." One holder of the franchise pointed out that the question had a very different complexion- in the Old Country, where the women far outnumbered the men. Any such change as was proposed in the OlcTCountry would most certainly he-a "step in the dark," as someone expressed it. While New Zealand could afford to give the women the franchise without a*y qualma or fears, no one would say exactly how it would affect British politics if all the women of 21 had the vote.

Not Keen Politicians. Judging from the result of most inquiries made, the "Star" reporter had to come to the conclusion that at present Tory little practical use ie made of the vote at- the age of 21 either by youths or n\ai«len,s, neither of whom seem to be addicted to politics. The flair for civic affairs seems to develop later, if it ever develops at all. Taking , them full and l>y. the young, colonials are not keen politicians, and until there is some radical -change in their tastes no one is likely to be killed in the rush to the La Hot boxes. A young woman suggested it would save a lot of bother and time if both young men and young women were allowed to run voteless until the age of 2-">. She-was sure that at the present time not one in a'hundred ever bothered about it until nearer thirty than twenty.