WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE IN NEW ZEALAND.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 8727, 24 February 1894, Page 9

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE IN NEW ZEALAND.

% ■■-COMMENTS IN THE ENGLISH PP.ESS. JFSOH OUR SJPECIAL. COBJIKSrOSDKNT.] LONDON, January 15. jjir Jo^" 1 Hall ha 3 written to Tlic Timet, joirectuig ail erroneous statement which bi& been made by thai paper to the effect rijat th» extension of Lhe franchise to women in New Zealand was " duo to the reinforccjgent of the Liberal element in the Council to the nominees of the Bailance Cfovernjpgjit." Sir John Hall points out that the " prelve Bailance nominees voted six each fSV, and he claims that the credit of giving jjje women of New Zealand the right to 'fOteat Parliamentary elections belongs to older members of the Legislative Counamong whom was found the narrow asperity of two by which the Bill was

pssied. Commenting on Sir John Hall's letter as being an interesting one, The Time* says -. — «Jfo one has a better right than Sir John Hull to claim the credit of any foaefit which may result to the colony ftom the passing of this measure, and lite -fact tnat he is himself an opponent of the Government under whose administration it has become law illustrates as well - is the even voting of the Bailance nominees jjotr little opinion upon the subject lias run Sporty lines." An illustration of " Emancipated Women .is New Zealand: Incidents of the First female Franchise Election in the Colony" is rtjijlished by the Daily Graphic. But ie jught jusfc as well represent any other gene in the world, for there is nothing - 'characteristic about it or any approach to local colouring. A man talking to a group of womankind with some sorb of vehicle in the background, and no indication whatever of nay election being in progress, does not convey any pointed idea, nor does a smaller iketch whfen shows five women, one seated, the other four standing, of whom one is newly hidden under a huge umbrella. Why these illustrations should be termed "incicents of the first female franchise election " \txa unable to guess. It is an insoluble conundrum. A correspondent of the same paper asserts that * 4 the Returning Officer was required -*e«r&i times to hold the babies of electors, 1 jai acquitted himself nobly of the duty." '■ He says also that " since the franchise was granted the women voters have all caught a I ytsj determined appearance, a sort of * we-bave-got-our - rights - and - we-mean-to-keep-'em' expression." And he adds that one : result has been a great improvement in the *• hustings language, ,, which in this instance Vis of the "beat Parliamentary kind." j According to the Globe, one effect of franchise in New Zealand is that . *'«he whole land, in point of fact, is ! more strenuous." Other effects, "according to the same paper, are "the purification of hustings rhetoric which is ; now blameless as the works of Tupper, I and the relegation of the men to a ! portion of inferior interest." It adds "the only really important man in New Zealaad juic now is he who has the luck to be the father of several free and independently voting daughters." • i A writer in the Birmingham Post declares that women's influence in the late election ; --'ma "wholly for good," and that in one of the moat recently contested elections ever held in New Zealand "no candidate was subjected to the indignities which, have at, other times disgraced ..political meetings." For instance ** such tangible forms of disapprobation of a ipe&ker's remarks as rotten eggs were but very rarely resorted to." E?idenUy this writer regards the occasional expression of opinion through the medium of the rotten egg as not eonsti- . toting any indignity of a disgraceful character, but merely as a " tangible form of disapprobation." It may be need only, it moat be " but rarely," and then it does not reflect any disgrace on the meetings. That teems to be his queer logic ! The Sim "shede a tear over the chestnut about the New Zealand girl who wished to vote for Mr Gladstone;" What is that joke? Do you know it? lam ashamed to I don't. But the Sun says that New Zealand women "displayed quite a remarkable political aptituue," ana that •* the electors of the otner sex treated them with considerable forbearance and good humour, though many are apprehensive of the consequences ot the greao constitutional change."