EQUAL RIGHTS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 39, 14 August 1926, Page 9

EQUAL RIGHTS

GUARDIANSHIP OF INFANTS

-811/ Ii RECEIVES GENERAL SOTPORT.

Warm approval of the provisions of the Guardianship of Infants Bill was expressed in the House of Representatives last night, and the Bill passed its second reading. The Minister of Justice (the Hon. F. J. Eolleston) said that the Bill followed the Imperial Act of 1925. The main principle was that the rights of the mother were to be equal to the rights of the father. The whole object of the Bill was the welfare of the child. If the mother died she had the right by tostamentary declaration to appoint a guardian to act jointly with the father, and the right was also given f-r the mother and father to appoint testamentary guardians. If trouble occurred between a parent and a joint guardian the parent had the right to appeal to the Court in order to have the dispute settled. The Bill was described by Mr. H. G. B. Mason (Eden) as another milestone in the inarch to the emancipation of women, and for that reason it should ba welcomed by all men of advanced yiewa.

The Eight Hon. Sir Joseph Ward (Invercargill) referred to a possible anomaly that might result under the clause making the surviving parent a guardian. It might happen that the surviving parent was quite unfit to act as guardian. Mr. P. Fraser (Wellington Central^ ■aid that they still had some distance to go. The Bill did not go so far as the English proposal that women should share all responsibilities so far as the upbringing of the child was concerned. He welcomed the Bill, however, and would support it. In replying, the Minister said that It was felt at Home that the point raised by Mr. Fraser would be extremely difficult to carry out in practice, and for that reason a clause on the lines of the suggestion was not included. There was provision to meet the point raised by Sir Joseph Ward. Tho Bill was read a second time.