VOTES FOR WOMEN

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 186, 9 May 1928, Page 11

VOTES FOR WOMEN

EQUAL FRANCHISE BILL

PASSED BY HOUSE OF COMMONS

MEASURE TO GO TO THE LORDS.

(British Official Wireless.)

Rugby, May 7.

The House of Commons .today passed without division the third reading of the Bill giving the vote to women, as to men, at the age of 21.. The Bill lias now to be adopted by the House of Lords. .

(United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) .

(Australian Press Assn.—United Service.)

London, May 7.

In the House of Commons, Mr. P. Snowden (Lab.), in the report stage on the Equal Franchise Bill, moved an amendment to abolish all plural voting, instead of giving it to propertied women as well as men.

Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Home Secretary, said that if they were making electoral regulations afresh, the amendment might be reasonable. The Bill was simply to give women the vote on the same terms as men. Plural voters and others would only be 450.000 out of twenty-five millions. The amendment was defeated by 216 votes to 78.

Mr. T. Kennedy (Lab.) moved to further reduce the maximum a candidate could spend in city or borough elections.

The Home Secretary said that Labour won 20 seats in the London Borough at an expenditure of 2.65 d. per elector; the Conservatives 31 seats at 4d. a head; and the Liberals three at a cost of 4.134 d. The amendment was defeated by 214 votes to 100, and the Bill was read a third time.