VOTES FOR WOMEN.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19317, 23 May 1928, Page 9

VOTES FOR WOMEN.

DEBATE IN HOUSE OP LORDS. (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH—COPYRIGHT.) LONDON, May 22. In the House of Lords the Lord Chancellor, in moving the second reading of the Votes for Women Bill, said that he looked forward to men and women equally sharing the burden or Empire. They had slowly built up the democracy to which they were now setting the coping stone. Lord Haldane believed that decisive majority in the House of Commons was endorsed by the great mass of public opinion. Lord Banbury, in moving the rejection of the Bill, claimed that there was no mandate at the last election for such a Bill, Previous extensions of franchise did not result in increased interest in politics. Earl Beauchamp pointed out that all the opponents of the Bill were Conservatives. Absentees from the House ot Commonß division on the measure in eluded three members of the Cabinet and 12 junior ministers. Lord Beauchamp objected to the increase in plural voting, a fact which made it more expensive to enter Parliament. The Duke of Northumberland said that the Bill represented a breach of the pledge to 'call a Party conference on the subject when it would have been accompanied by a redistribution of seats. The Reform of the Lords Act of 1918 had lowered the standard of political morality and led to the creation, by the Government of to-da? of enormous funds for propaganda in an electorate, b.v means of the sale of honours. . Lords Newton, Sumner Jo - "-v, and Ampthill spoke against uie Uill. and the debate was adjourned.—Australian Press Association.