WOMEN THE WORLD OVER

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21228, 28 July 1934, Page 2

WOMEN THE WORLD OVER

(SFXCIAIXT WHITTKB TOR THE WIESS.) [By ATALA.NTA.T Since our last chat there has died in Christchurch one who 40 years ago was the most prominent woman in the country. On the occasion of the National Council of Women holding its session here last autumn. I referred to the inauguration of the first council here in 1896, the president chosen being Mrs K. W. Sheppard, the charming and capable leader of the Franchise Campaign which won New Zealand women the vote and our country the lasting honour of beirig the world's national pioneer in this grand adventure of citizenship. Foe a quarter of a century more Mrs Sheppard remained a quiet but essentially upbuilding power among the busy, nobly ambitious societies of women who figured in making New Zealand the envy of social and political reformers abroad. Nor do we forget to honour the gallant band of men who stood for us then, men like Sir John Hall, just in mind and clear of vision, whose ardour neither slackened nor cooled till the day was won. Gallant men, gallant days, and gallant women—for a later day has all but forgotten the true genesis of this early suffrage venture oi ours. How many now remember that this romance of women's citizenship was itself born and brought to victory out of another romance of women's righteous militancy, which swept like a flame out of Ohio, over America, and overflowed to New Zealand in the early 'eighties? It was women's great hour, indeed, in New Zealand, whose young University had given a yet earlier world-lead in opening its doors to girl students. Here, again, Christchurch scored, for the young hero of that quest was, and is. a man of hers, Professor Macmillan Brown, who has lived to add the laurels of literature and anthropology to that faraway victory which the women of all lands now regard as their right. The franchise heroine of the sounding 'nineties has gone to her rest. She had been long withdrawn from the strife that came and widened with our fateful century. Mrs LovellSmith, as she became later, was spared long enough to see the long series of reform and enlargements that followed that auspicious victory of 1893, long enough to see our first woman M.P. claim her rightful place in our Parliament. Even this is not the copestone of the edifice. We look hopefully for our coming Cabinet Minister, or, if New Zealand's luck holds, the first British woman Premier. Why Women Go Nazi

Women have a powerful hold on thai chameleon of a symposium on current English thought, "Notes by the Way," in "Time and Tide." Several of the most brilliant of modern penwomen are contributors, and of late the presiding genius of the paper, Lady Rhondda, herself frequently conducts the column. The mere men who usually hold the field can frequently learn something from the spindle point of view, and not long ago Lady Rhondda must have provided them with some new and, in places, not uncongenial lines of reflection. Her text was the possible—she does not think it probable—pulling over of England to Fascism by Sir Oswald Mosley, whom she calls the Beauteous Blackshirt. She ruthlessly calls it Naziism, whereas Sir Oswald's followers are sticklers, naturally, for the Sunday name which Sigtior Mussolini has provisionally whitewashed. Lady Rhondda asks whether Englishwomen could possibly accept this startling volte face, as meekly and even readily as the German women seemed to do last year, and rather surprisingly carries the probable bulk of her readers towards an affirmative which startles Antipodeans. The present st;itc of affairs in Europe is shown up by her assertion that Englishwomen, like their sisters elsewhere, have not worked their vote to the point of economic freedom, and in fact the vote has not done that for the presumedly practised masculine votewangler. Consequently, she says, there is a grounded impression that real economic freedom for women means busy, perpetual spinstcrhood. Under no rule does Fascism build up women in the i professional or even commercial hope. Hitler's variety has bluntly turned back the German frau from the tolerably square deal she was getting under theRepublic to the old order, "Cooking, Church, and Children." Wc know that Hitler's broom has swept out the army of capable women clerks, business officials, and really fine administrative heads who had functioned and | flourished under recent Chancellors of [ Germany. Lady Rhondda does nor see any kinder look towards women in the eye of Sir Oswald Mosley. but seizes on the fact that the Nazis are ns explicit as other Fascists as to the certainty of seme sort of heme and husband in exchange for what has still remained the doubtful chance of economic freedom. "Now," she asks, "what would be the normal answer of the majority of women faced with the blunt alternative of even certain economic emancipation and everlasting heart-hunger for home and normal human ties?" The answer gives the most devoted of feminists furiously to think. Nor does this searching questioner leave the matter at that: she goes on to the case of the ordinary man if faced with the same alternative, barring even the 'clandestine relationships which reconcile many now to the absence of wines and lawful children. Humanity has clearly not been created on such lines, nor do New Zealand readers feci absolute confidence in these presentiments of modern conditions in Britain. One fancies "economic freedom" to mean something larger to Lady Rhondda than it docs to women brought up on humbler lines. Moreover, if girls who are both home-like and capable outside the home remain unwed, it is unsafe to assume that the reason was never one of choice. The Nazi Shadow However, Lady Rhondda's argument goes for a country where Nazi-ism is an unknown force, "Atalanta" is humbly of opinion that the spirited, responsible, and devoted women of Germany, who were working so hard for peace and sound international conciliation while Germany yet cherished some hope of justice from Europe, will be found the strong power behind Hitler's final overthrow—may it be soon! How much of the present fog of cables and oflicial presentments would be dispelled if only the public were constrained to read the wellinformed, fearless, and entirely "axeless" women's press. Shrunken to a skeleton as it now is, it still lets light into most unexpected places. The rank and file of cable-readers have a hazy impression that, though some of Dr. Dollfuss's recent actions have been ] counted dubious, the Austrian Government is still putting up a fight against the serfdom established across the fron tier. But if, "Tell me who a man's friends are, and I will tell you what the man is," rings true, "Tell me whom a man counts as enemies, and I will tell you what the man is," can be no less significant. The latest issue of "Dawn" informs Australian women that Frau Emmy Freundlich, a socialist member of the Austrian Parliament, has been placed in "preventive custody," an ill-sounding, Nazi-like term. Feminists are here reminded what Frau Emmy ("Friendly" by name and nature) has proved herself to be. All the world knows her as the active president of the International Women's Co-operative Guild, a body as little likely to be caught fomenting sedition anywhere as the Women's Christian Temperance Union in New Zealand. This is shown by Frau Freundlich's prominent association with the International Women's Disarmament Committee at Geneva. No wonder that the International Women's Suffrage Alliance, with every other leading women's organisation of world-better-ment, lias sent a letter requesting her

immediate release. The signatories pointedly remind Dr Dollfuss that Frau Freundlich was the first woman in Austria to hold ministerial office, as Director of the Food Ministry in the last years of the war; also that she wds an Austrian delegate (and the only woman vice-president) to the world economic conference in 1927. If such a worker for humanity is now regarded as a damer to the Austrian Government, it is clear that the sword suspended above the head of Hitler will also descend upon the head of Dr. Dollfuss in due time.