WOMEN AND PUBLIC OFFICES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 27, 1 August 1923, Page 2

WOMEN AND PUBLIC OFFICES

TO THE EDITOIt. Sir, —In reference to an article in last night's issue of the "Evening Post" exempting women from holding the office of J.P., I would like to add rather an interesting occurrence which came to •my notice some time ago. I met a very intelligent young woman whom you would have thought any man of standing would be happy to be acquainted with. I asked her. why she was not married. Her reply was as follows:—■ "When. I was a little girl just about- to leavo school my mother prepared and marked my sister's clothes ready for her to go to college, as under a settlement by deed of will she was entitled to a period of college education. When all was prepared her uncle, who was the trustee appointed (she had a boy's name), said in my presence : 'Oh, it's a girl! Girls don't need any education; they only get married' " (and he never sent her). From that time on she made' up her mind she would not marry. This kind of occurrence is, I think, at the back of much of the desire by women to take public office. They see. plainly that because they are women, many of them through ignorance have been deprived of a voice in matters vitally concerning them. This young woman, because of her intelligence, saw that the boys were to be. educated to a -higher standard, but not so the -girjs, even I though provision was -made for them, ! and.if the girls did not receive such education they would not be able to obtain what was theirs, because the male line had an education which could overthrow all. endeavours for justice. Women of New Zealand are to-day awake in a wonderful way, and I would not likq'Ho see them deprived of representation in any office where an unencumbered woman could have scope to develop that which i s in her for the betterment of the race. Women in all ages have been at the back of progress. They are calling out to-day—"Let- us go forward'"— and they meet a brick wall. Give them a- trial and judge after.—l am, etc., ELLEN C. MACKENZIE. Ist August.