The Press. TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 1914. Women's Suffrage in New Zealand.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14918, 17 March 1914, Page 6

The Press. TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 1914. Women's Suffrage in New Zealand.

The anxiety of the English women's tuff rage advocates for a more extensive cabling to the colonies of news respecting tho moTement is not very intelligible. No unbiased journalist, with a spaco limit imposed tipon him, could do much moro than the cable agent in London has been doing : there i.< really not much of a material kind which calls for cabling beyond the outrages which the suffragists be--iove aro steps towards their goal. We are much afraid that these ladies do not understand women's suffrage in the colonies and the colonial point of ! view. SJiss Slargarct Hodge, who re-! ccntly travelled through New Zealand a.; a suffragist missionary, ought to _mv_ learned all there whs to learn about the position here, hut she seems to mire erred rather badly in her inferences, if wo are to judge from an article on "Tho Effect of the Woman's "vote in New Zealand," which she contributes to "Votes for Women-" Much of what Miss Hodge says is true, of course. It is true that "the " female portion of the community "study questions for themselves, at- " tend meetings and read papers upon "both sides," if by "the female por- " tion of the community" is meant those women—-iud we bo_:(>ve tivey »r an increasing section —who use their intelligence in al .things. But it is hardly correct to imply, as Miss Hodge implies, that it was the vote, and nothing else, that aroused "the keen "consciousness of civic duty" which

animates tho ladies of the W.C.T.U. Vote or no vote, there would always bo temperance organisations for women. And how far, in any event, does the consciousness of civic duty carry these women? The cause of prohibition, after all, is a poor cause. Evc-n tho .-a__o of temperance in the matter of drinking is of less importance than the great vital causes of sound finance, sound taxation, adequate defence preparations, and sound industrialism. And it can hardly be said that the women made any attempt until 1911, when they found "Liberalism out, consciously to exercise their influence upon these causes. But what we feci inclined most to dissent from is Mis Hodge's suggestion that it is to the women's vote, that wo owo our low rato of mfantilo mortality. Would not T>r. Tin by Kin.; have been worrying us all into wisdom even if the women had not had the vote? And is the vote the only key to open the eyes of a mother to the truth concerning baby-feeding? These questions admit of being ansucred in only ono way. .Miss Hodge cites also "the two Acts which aeknow- " ledge the economic partnership of " husband and wife (Municipal Kran"chi.«> and Old-Age Pensions Acts),'' the Divorce Act ("which is equal for " both sexes''), the equality of the .sexes in our education system and in branches of local government .the Juvenile Courts, the Testator's Family Maintenance Act, the Factory Acts, and the Old Age Pensions Act. This last-named measure, and tho provision by which a woman " can secure com- " p. nsation for slander without proving special damage" aro, Mi-s Hodge *uys, "the outcome of the new chiv--airy which understands women's " nerds because it ha.s studied their "point of view"; and she concludes that all this is "nothing to what tho " women of the Dominion will acrom- | " plisii now that the toil and courage "tho heroism and sufferings of their j " sisters in Great Britain have fully " awakened them to the value and tho " power of the vote.'' Now, we in New Zealand a_l know that the women's vote has had littlo or nothing to do with majiy of the enactments recorded. Equally certain is it, that the atrocious crimes ("the toil and 'courage") of the "militants" have affected 999 women on. of 1000 in this country only with feolings of digust i.nd wonder. Nobody in New Zealand would dream of depriving the women ot their right to vote, but it is a great mistake to suppose that whatever good Its been achieved by the Legislature in the last 20 years would not havo been achieved if men alone enjoyed the suffrage. The plain truth is, that women in New Zealand do not in general think as a sex or vote as a sex, but only as citizens.