Women Candidates.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17634, 11 December 1922, Page 6

Women Candidates.

Tho first women candidates to follow up, at a long interval, the confermen? ot the franchise on women in New Zealand by offering themselves as candidates for seats in Parliament, made theii appearance only three years ago. At the election of 1919, Miss Melville, who, we believe, is the only woman solicitor practising on her own account in the Dominion, etood as the Official Reform candidate for Grey Lynn, and in a field of five, she was beaten by the successful Labour candidate by less than 500 votes. Mrs Baume (Parnell) and Mrs Cooke (Thames) were also defeated candidates at that election. This year three women candidates again sought the suffrages of the electors —Miss Melville, who having chosen to stand for "Roskill against the wishes of the Reform Party, had to be content to describe herself as an Independent Reformer, Mrs McVicar, who was a candidate for Wellington East, also as an Independent Reformer, and Mrs ,A. E. Herbert, who contested Avon as an Independent. Each of these ladies has a good record of public service. Mies Melville has been a member of the Auckland City Council for the past nine years, and has taken a prominent part in th« work of various women's organisations. Mrs McVicar is a member of the Wellington City Council and the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, and vice-president and foundation member of what is commonly spoken of as the Plunket Society. With Mrs Herbert's work as a member of the North Canterbury Hospital and Charitable Aid Board and of her effort*,

through other agencies, on behalf of women and children and the poor, many people here are familiar. Here, then, are three women, each possessing an acknowledged reputation for good and -.useful work in the city in which she lives. Yet each of them, on presenting herself for election to Parliament, is defeated. Even Miss Melville, the only one with previous experience of a Parliamentary election, could not get within a thousand votes of the number that she polled on her first attempt. Such treatment looks like rank ingratitude, but really it ie nothing of the kind. It is due to a deep conviction on the part of the mass of electors, not that "women's place ts •"in her home"—the hasty maxim that used to be thrown a generation ago at all women who sought to do useful public work—but that the/ work of Parliament can be done better by men than by women. Men may not always make a conspicuous success of the job of legislating for the rest of the community, but they do their best, and it is obvious that a very large majority of men and women believe that women could do no better. It is only within the past year or two that women have entered the House of.-; Commons, and even now a population of 45 millions is satisfied to haive only two women M.P.'s. Their influence on legislation is, if not negligible, at least no greater than it would be if exercised out of the House, and probably not so great. The ! time may come when women will share to the full extent the duties of a legis-.] later, but that time is not yet, and in the meanwhile, there is a large field of usefulness outside Parliament in which they can exercise their womanly abilities to the great benefit of those whom they serve.