FEMALE FRANCHISE.

Evening Star, Issue 8549, 23 June 1891, Page 1

FEMALE FRANCHISE.

We are very glad to note that there is every probability of a clause being inserted in the Electoral Bill now before Parliament for granting the franchise to women. It is unnecessary to recapitulate the stock arguments in favor of this measure, so frequently advanced in our columns,fand never refuted. The public mind we believe to be quite made up on the subject, and, indeed, expressed so plainly, that we are somewhat surprised that provision was not made in the Bill, as introduced by the Government; particularly as Ministers appear to be unanimously favorable. The granting of political privileges to women we conceive to be not only in accordance with justice and right, but altogether expedient in the interests of the community. There are a variety of questions in regard to which women are exceedingly well informed, in which they take a lively interest, and where their influence might with great advantage be materially exerted. Their possession of voting power would compel the active consideration of subjects gravely important, which are too frequently shunted in the more immediate urgency of political contest Social questions seldom receive the attention they require in the Legislature. Session after session measures relating thereto and dealing therewith are consigned to limbo. The opinions of wives and mothers have not, further, the weight they should have in determining legislation affecting their nrost direct interests the education, for instance, of their children, the regulation of female labor, and the distribution of and providing ways and means for charitable aid. All legislation, moreover, in which the moral law is involved, might, with palpably good effects, be leavened by the mind of that sex, which has so much at stake in the maintenance of sound principles. As to the pleas of justice and of right, these can hardly be set aside. It is accepted in political economy as an axiom that there should be no taxation without representation; but women in this Colony contribute both directly and indirectly to the revenue without having any voice whatever in the expenditure of the taxes. For example, we find by recent returns that widows, wives owning separate estates from their husbands, and spinsters own (in the aggregate) property to the value of £5,345,641, and paid last year Property Tax to the amount of £22,273; indeed, as a class, they rank fourth in the list of contributories. This, we think, in itself constitutes a very strong argument. Recent legislation, not to speak of the remarkable judgments of a high court of the realm, have confirmed the independence of women in social and business matters. Is there any valid reason why political privileges should any longer be denied 1 So far as we can gather from the telegraphic reports of the discussion in the' House there has been a tendency to set up the Legislative Council as a bogy—some members contending that the insertion of the female franchise clause would imperil the Bill in that Chamber. We do not believe that there is any risk whatever of the members of the Council thus setting themselves against the wish of the people) which, when the Bill passes the House, will have been for the second time constitutionally declared. The Council are especially on their trial in the present very critical political situation, and it would be very bad policy to thwart the representatives of the people, backed, as they undoubtedly are on this question, by the constituencies. As to an immediate dissolution, should the franchise be thus extended, there is no force whatever in the argument that this would be necessary, and it could easily be provided against in the Bill.