LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27374, 12 June 1954, Page 2

LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN

PHILIPPINES AND N.Z. COMPARED

The legal position of women in the Philippines and in New Zealand was discussed at a meeting last night of the Christchurch branch of the PanPacific Women’s Association.

Mrs Guyon Macdonald said that in New Zealand the law of inheritance was the same for women as for men, both girls and boys compulsorily attended school until they were 15, and both men and women were entitled to vote when they were 21 years. Mrs Macdonald said that in New Zealand it was neither the custom nor the law for sons to receive more than daughters from their parents’ estates, that if a man educated his children adequately and fitted them to earn their living, he was under no legal obligation to provide for them in his will, that a gift of money up to £5OO might be made without incurring gift duty, and that if a man died -intestate, his wife was entitled to his chattels, to £lOOO, and to one-third of the value of his estate. The remaining twothirds went to his children. The same law applied to the estate of a woman. Mrs R. A. Young gave a comprehensive account of conditions in the Philippines, and quoted from reports by two Americans—Thomas Dewey and a Judge of the Supreme Court—who had been commissioned by the United States Government to investigate conditions in the Philippines in the last few years. Mrs Young said that from these reports it was difficult to,believe that the political and civil status or women in the Philippines was high. One evil, she said, was the great extremes of wealth and poverty. Ninetyeight per cent, of the land in some districts was owned by 2 per cent, of the population, and tenant farmers were obliged to pay one-third of their earnings tj the landlord. It had been estimated that 1,500.000 farmers lived below subsistence level.

The land laws, Mrs Young said, were the basic trouble in the country, and because of the poor conditions of the mass of the people, communism flourished. Many who had been in the resistance movement later became Communists. Attendance at school was not compulsory, and half the population were illiterate, Mrs Young said. But, recently, conditions had improved in some parts. The school population had greatly increased, and efforts were being made to improve the condition cf the farmers and help them to free themselves from the power of moneylenders.

Miss M. G. Havelaar presided at the meeting.