WOMEN RAID PARLIAMENT

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 38, 14 August 1917, Page 8

WOMEN RAID PARLIAMENT

EXTRAORDINARY SCENE Df

MELBOURNE.

(raoii oun own correspondent.}

SYDNEY, 9th August.

There' was an extraordinary scene in Melbourne last Thursday, when between one and two hundred women of the Socialist party, led by the now notorious agitator and peace propagandist, Miss Adela Pankhurst, attempted to break into the Federal House of Representatives while the members were in session.

The women, apparently, took the doorkeepers by surprise.' They assembled on the steps of Parliament House at 3 p.m., and marched into the outer hall. Here the leaders made impassioned speeches. The women were told that they were of tho starving unemployed— that they could not get work, and that the Government was keeping food prices at a criminally high'level. Them the women tried to get into the large chamber known as the Queen's Hall. Frantic messages from' the overwhelmed doorkeepers had brought reinforcements, and the doors were held successfully; Then Miss Pankhurst, with the prescience of her .breed,' headed a rush through a door labelled "Members Only," and in a moment the excited creatures were clawing at a solid door which led immediately into the Legislative Chamber itaelf. "We want Hughes," "Adjourn the House," "Give us work," were the shrieks that penetrated into the Chamber, and brought the solemn proceedings there to a sudden, deathly pause. Messengers, doorkeepers, and lackeys dashed round and headed, off the women at the door. There were shrieks, howls, and wild imprecations. But masculinity prevailed. Miss Pankhurst and her agitated followers were hustled along the corridor and out into the vestibule. Reinforced by her main, body of supporters. Miss Pankhurst climbed on a chair, and started to lash the women to a new frenzy by the fury of her eloquence. But stolid policemen moved- forward and the heroino of a thousand suffragette battles lost her chair.

Meanwhile, the House went on with its business. But the Speaker made quorum calculations anxiously. Officially, such a disturbance was beneath ' the notice of honourable members. Actually, every honourable member who could slip away, as well as .every official, pressman, and attendant, were out in the midst of thei tumult. From this audience came a sharp warning; the women were attacking another side door. The crowd rushed, but so did the police and attendants, and this attempt was also frustrated. There was another chorus of " We want work " and "We want our boys back." The women —who, by the way, aro said to have been mostly from the recently closed-down ammunition works—wen now joined by several men, among whom a prominent I.W.W. agitator was recoc nised.

Baulked, of their prey, the women slowly dispersed, while a few groups still lingered, arguing in threatening lan guage.

A boarding-house keeper who appeared before the Conciliation Council this morning, seeking exemption from the Private Hotels Award, stated that she paid £42 15s a month for rent—arid the landlord had refused to 'make necessary improvements in the building. She pleaded that, with this handicap, sho could not afford to raise wages or engage more help. "It appears to me." said the union representative, "that the landlord is getting quite a- lot that the workers should- get." The executive of the Returned Soldiers' Jtssociation has received' five tondcrs for the erection of a soldiers' club in Masterton. It will be some days before a tender is accepted.