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Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17394, 3 March 1922, Page 6

One imagines that Mrs Cowan, Australia's one woman legislator, must make friends wherever she speaks. She addressed the members of the Australian Women's National League recently in Melbourne in a speech marked by, common-sense and humour, speaking so convincingly that Mrs W. M. Hughes, the president of the League, who is opposed to the appearance of women in Parliament, had to admit that she'was ''almost converted" to the contrary opinion. Mrs Cowan herself has no doubts as to women's usefulness in Parliament. If there were more there, she declared, the Bills would be brought in to time, not left, as they are now, for the last few days, or an important measure like a Licensing Bill brought up in the last ten minutes of a session. "Men need someone to keep them up to time," she commented. Some acquaintance with Parliament and its ways compels us to agree with her, though there is no assurance that in time women members would not acquire the faults of male legislators. Mrs Cowan told her hearers that if any of them stood for Parliament they would know more about themselves and their private affairs before the election was over than they had ever dreamed of. We have all heard of men reading their own obituary notices, but Mrs Cowan's husband had the unusual experience of being told one day, by someone who was ignorant of his identity, that he was dead of a broken heart, caused by bis wife's neglect, and that her children were starved. Mrs Cowan learned during the campaign that a woman candidate needs to have many accomplishments, and cited the case of some people who voted for her because her sister assured them that

she was a good needlewoman—a recommendation which, after all, is as good as some put forward on behalf of men candidates. She expressed the opinion that there is fearful waste at elections. But not on her part —she had all voluntary canvassers, and her electioneering expenses totalled £4B, "although they had to go to the expense of purchasing new calico for signs to be printed, even after the committeewomen had torn up their husbands' calico belongings to save buying new fabric. She knew that her rivals' expenses totalled hundreds of pounds." Fossib'y the wiYes of these men would not let them tear up their "calico belongings." She was advised on entering the House that she need not stay out the late sittings, but she declared that she "sat up better than the men did," and when they commented on this she told them: "I've sat up with my babies and with my old mnn all night, many a time, as your wives have done, so I am used to it." The "West. Australian House must be all the more cheerful for Mrs Cowan's presence among the members.