PARLIAMENT INVADED

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 36, 10 August 1918, Page 10

PARLIAMENT INVADED

BY QUEENSLAND .WOMEN.

(FROX OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, 31st July. One of tho most extraordinary incidents in the history of the Queensland Parliament occurred last night, when some hundreds of angry women, who have been appealing in vain for six o'clock closing of liquor bars in Queensland, took possession of the Queensland Parliament for about forty minutes. Queensland did not follow the example of the other five States and introduce early closing, by Act of Parliament. Instead, Queensland asked the electors to vote on the matter, and the electors turned it down. The other States introduced the reform as a necessary war measure, for the period of the war. A large section of the Queensland people has naturally been vary indignant over the matter,, their numbers including many who are by no means in favour of total prohibition. ■ „ ■

Last night, a mass meeting of women passed a resolution urging the Government to introduce the desired measure, and it was resolved to present it to the Premier, Mr. Ryan, forthwith. The women marched through the streets to Parliament House, to the cry of "We want sis o'clock closing." Two of the leaders interviewed Mr. ■Ryan, but he simply assured them'that the measure was provided for in the Popular Initiative and Referendum Bill now before ParHamunt, and the passage of which depends. on the anti-Ryan Legislative Council. Ho also declined to address the women.

So the women packed themselves into the galleries surrounding three rides of the Legislative Chamber, and every now and then chanted their slogan in spite of the Speaker's appeals for order. '

The indignant Parliamentarians then sent for the police, and a posse of constables entered the galleries in a menacing way. Just when excitement was running high, someone turned out the lights. There should, according to all traditions, have been wild shrieks and a stampede upon the part.of the gentler sex. . But the dauntless ladies hold their ground, and their slogan, and wild hoots for Mr. Ryan, split the quivering dark. The lights were promptly turned on again, and the (police made a .move to clear the galleries. The defiant ladies sang the National Anthem at them. The police came on.

Then the "women showered upon, the discomfited members, in the benches beneath them, small cards bearing the words, "We women of Queensland want six o'clock closing," and sloivlt filed from the .galleries. - •' • Thsy had held up the business of th« Chamber' Jor forty minutes.