WOMEN LEGISLATORS

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 138, 7 December 1918, Page 4

WOMEN LEGISLATORS

TWO PRINCIPLES THE COUNCIL'S CHOICE. After The Post went to prow yesterday the Legislative Council continued its discussion of tho reasons given for dissenting from tho addition to tho Legislative Council Amendment Bill which admits women to Parliament. The Hon. \V. Earnshnw did not approve of the admission of women to tho Legislature, and he was opposed to the way in which thin change was Bought U) be effected without any mandate from tho people. Tho Hon. G. J. Garland quite approved of the principle of the amendment, and hoped if it were not retained it would be embodied in a Bill. Sir William ■ Hall-Jones thought that the reasons {given by the Council for objecting to the amendment were trifling with the matter. Sir Francis Bell, in reply, said the malting of a great constitutional change in this way did not permit of its full discussion. "I hope," he added, "the Council will put its foot down on this kind of thing. You will have no end to it. You will have all sorts of things put in Acts, when deliberate debate would lead members to arrive at a different conclusion." Sir William Hall-Jones: What about 1914? Sir Francis Bell said the House of Representatives, moro or less as a practical joke, struck out the word "males" in .reference to the membership of the Legislative Council, so that males or females might be members of the Council, while the membership of tho House was confined to males. The Council said that when women were eligible for the House they should be eligible for tho Council. The question of nominating women was not considered worthy of attention, a3 it wag then thought that the nomination period was practically at an end. He was not arguing that when women were eligible for the House of Representatives they should be eligible for the Council, but what he did wish to say was thai this method of making a great change was a very serious infringement of the method of Parliament. It was the very thing that a deliberative Chamber was constituted for — that constitutional (changes fthould be made deliberately and after full consideration. He trusted that the Council, for the sake of its reputation, its fnture, its honour, and its credit, | would affirm the reason for disagreement with the amendment.

Sir Francis Bell's motion was carried by 26 votes to 5. The voting was: — Ayes: Bell, Aitken, Alison, Baillie, Barr, Buchanan, Earashaw, Fisher, Gow, Hardy, Harris Hawke, Izard, Louisson, Mac Gibbon, MacGregor, Moore, Samuel, Simpson, Sinclair, Steward Te Heu Heu Tukino, Thomson, Topi Patuki, Triggs, Wigram. Noes: Fleming, Garland, Hall-Jones, Jones, Paul.