BRITISH WOMEN MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 264, 3 August 1929, Page 20

BRITISH WOMEN MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

A NOTABLE TEAM

The day will come when the presence of women in the House of Commons will be no more noticeable than that of men, when their political preoccupations will be determined by no consideration of sex and when the grouping together of women members will be no more significant than the grouping of members who have travelled in the Dominions, or mem-

bers with a scientific training (writes

Winifred Holtby in the “Observer"). But that time has not yet arrived. The fourteen women in the new Parliament, though they differ in their interests, party allegiance, and experience, are bouvl together upon certain issues by the special position which women still hold under the law and the economic

system as a class apart. Not one of them, perhaps, is a feminist before all other claims, but on certain questions all fourteen will stand together. They make a notable team. Among the women supporters of the Government, three are old hands at the Parliamentary game. Leading them is Miss Margaret Bondfield, “Our Maggie,” first woman member of the Cabinet, beaming, alert, eloquent, and sensible. A keen trade unionist who never forgets that she once stood behind the counter, the first woman Chairman of the General Council of the T.U.C., a well-known figure at Geneva, she has been a Socialist organiser since 1898. A fervent Socialist, pacifist, and propagandist, she contrives to disarm many of her political opponents by the sobriety of her religious faith and her ardour for social reform. Miss Bondfield’s distinction lies chiefly in her practical experience; Miss Susan Lawrence has high intellectual quality as well. During her impressive handling of the financial complexities of the De-rating Bill, speculators whispered. “There goes the first woman Chancellor of the Exchequer.” She may never attain to that distinction; her closecropped head has already grown grey in the public service. Since she left Cambridge she has worked as a suffragist, a member of the' London School Board, one time vice-chairman of the L.C.C., and a vigorous party advocate. Her grave figure forms a striking contrast to the vivid, red-headed personality of Miss Ellen Wilkinson. Since she left Manchester University in 1913 “Red Ellen” has had that quality known as “good news value.” A one-time Communist who found such extremism uncongenial to her fundamental sanity, a suffrage worker, a trade union organiser, and for three years Manchester’s youngest city councillor, in her short life she has carried through a hundred battles her dashing courage, her quick temper, and her flowing idealism. It was not inappropriate that the heroine of her recently published first novel should be a versatile and ardent young woman, an able organiser, a passionate and impulsive speaker, and —a minx. Miss Jennie Lee has usurped her place as the youngest woman M.P. This miner's daughter, who won scholarships to Edinburgh University and has become in her early twenties a lawyer, a teacher, and a member of Parliament, has still to prove her capacity to a wider public than the Scottish audiences who watched her fiery election cnnyiaigns, or the last Parliament which heard her maiden speech.

Among the new-comers to the Socialist Party the most widely known is probably Mrs. Mary Agnes ' Hamilton, , whose broadcast talks about current novels have made her voice familiar all over the country. A Newnhnm graduate like Miss Lawrence, a distinguished economist,

novelist, and critic, she is famous in the Socialist world as the biographer of the Prime Minister, in the political world as a member of the Balfour Commission on Trade and Industry, and in the wbrld of letters as an imaginative writer, whose best novels have attained to a really high artistic standard. Because Lady Cynthia Mosley's father was the late Lord Curzon, because she is beautiful and rich and gay, many people treated her adventure into Socialism as the whim of -an eccentric young aristocrat. They did not realise thnt she has been a student at the London School of

Economics, a civil servant in the War Office, and is now an unusually wellinformed and strenuous politician. Dr. Marion Phillips, an Australian Economist, has been for some _ years chief woman officer of the Socialist Party. Dr. Ethel Bentham has devoted an energetic life to the service of public health. She founded in North Kensington tbe first baby clinic, and East Islington knows well her short, upright figure, her greed for work, and her earlier experiences as one of the first women magistrates. Miss Picton Turberville, 0.8. E., is better known in the pulpit than on the platform. Her dignified personality is widely respected as an organiser for the Y.W.C.i. in India, a writer and a speaker on religious subjects, and a social worker. Neither sex nor circumstances could prevent Miss Eleanor Rathbone, M.P., J.P C.C., M.A., from becoming a statesman. At Somerville they called her “The Philosopher.” As the author of “The Disinl -rited Family” and chief protagonist of the policy of Family Allowances, she is one of the most original economists of to-day. Her work In local government at Liverpool, and as President of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, has given her magnificent political and administrative experience. Though she comes of a famous Liberal family, she has persisted for eighteen years in calling herself an Independent. Not so Miss Megan Lloyd George. The chief thing known of her at present is her Liberalism; but the ambitious child of a famous father always starts life handicapped. She may soon establish an independent reputation. All three Conservative ■ members have been in the House before. When Sir James Ramsay hung a great notice proclaiming “Votes for Women’’ over the entry to Banff Castle while his daughter was leading the anti-suffrage movement, few then foresaw in the energetic, musical, sociable Scotch hostess, Lady Tullibardine, who thus defied her father, the present Duchess of Atholl. Lady Iveagh began her political career as private secretary to her father, the late Lord Onslow. As chairman of, the Women's Unionist Organisation for England and Wales she rendered considerable service to the party before she was elected to her husband's seat on South-end-on-Sea, and made her famous maiden speech on the Revision of the Prayer Book. Both the Duchess of Atholl and Lady Iveagh are loyal servants of their party. Lady Astor is much more than that. The most independent of politicians. She attacks the drink trade, obsolete legislation about children, and political inequalites with the nerve of a kinema star cultivating publicity, shocking the unimaginative who have never seen burning sincerity adorned with gay frivolity. Weddings.—Bouquets designed with Individuality as the keynote. Exquisite colouring effects, obtained only from Miss Murray. Vice-Regal Florist, 36 Willis Street.—Advt