WOMEN IN 1928

Evening Star, Issue 20062, 31 December 1928, Page 4

WOMEN IN 1928

A FEMINIST REVIEW OF THE PASSING YEAR [Written by Jessie Mack ay for the ‘Evening Star.’] The year 1928 draws rapidly to an end. It is fitting that the first retrospect for women renders should begin with those who have found rest since last January began. No more notable name occurs than that of the lamented Dane, Anna Bngge Wicksell. Dur-. ing her sixty-five years of life, spent mainly in Sweden, she had actively helped in peace and international understanding, and was naturally chosen iu 1920 as Sweden’s delegate to the League of Nations, being, further, the only woman placed on the Mandates Commission. Scotland lost a veteran Prcsswoman in Mrs M. E. Hunter, an executive member of the Institute of Journalists. The death ol Miss Eloreuce Balgnrnie stirs widespread remembrance of a great .British'pioneer, who, graduating in early suffrage and social work (including appointment of police matrons and improved inspection of factories), threw herself finally into Temperance work as a far-travelled lecturer. Britain’s most notable loss was the great suffragist, Mrs Emmeline Paukhurst, whose funeral in London drew thousands of mourners. Hoc war with the English Government from 1908 to 1914 was so fully condoned by war service and uplift work that she was an accepted Government candidate for Parliament when she died. She saw the full triumph of suffrage, the “Flappers’ Bill” being passed, though not signed, the month she went from earth. Nearly ten years older than Mrs Paukhurst was Dame Ellen Terry, the darling of Victorian and later theatre-goers, and the model of kind and gracious women leaders of art in stagecraft. The roll of honour closes with the passing of the great German leader, Frau Marie Stritt, at seventythree. A City Commissioner of Dresden, Frau Stritt had earned fame as a journalist, a suffragist, a peace worker, and an internationalist. It is hoped that the Irish veteran'suffragist and philanthropist, Mrs Dcspard, nowturned eighty-four, may surmount successfully the shock of a recent painful accident in Dublin. Mrs Despard is the famed sister of Lord French. One of Hie outstanding features of the year was the report of the Department on the White Slave 'J raffle at Geneva—a terrible indictment of nonCeltic and non-Tentonie races throughout the earth. France and Poland head the Old World in this infamy. Mexico heads the Now World. Good is certainly following this searchlight on dark places Britain is honourably acquitted. Full credit tor aiding this acquittal lias been given to God’s great militant, Josephine Butler, \vhose centenary comes this year, reviving memories of the bygone war against regulation in England half a century ago. The name of tills sainted loader was a powerful inspiration to those noble Englishmen and women fighting the same battle for purity and freedom to-dav in Hong Kong, , the Federated Malay States, Singapore, and Kenya. .Reliance is being placed on the Colonial Secretary having put the business in the hands of an established Advisory Committee From this we naturally pass to the question most iu the limelight in Britain at the moment, women police. Never, perhaps, has an anti-feminist received a heavier blow from a boomerang than did Sir William Horwood, late head of the London police, retired from the service four months ago after the Savidge case, throwing sinister lights on methods of obtaining evidence. Sir William’s first act in office had been the dismissal of nearly all the woman police in London. Hod there been women patrolling Hyde Park there would have been no Savidge case. Sir Wililam would have been saved compulsory retirement, and England a notability of peculiar disservice In her this year. The upshot reveals that British women police are at the dubious stage of recognition from which Sir Robert Peel rescued the men police nearly a century ago. That equal status is urgently required is stressed by the terrible increase in offences against women and children in Britain to-day, accompanied too often by incredibly light sentences. It may be noted with profit that the promise of women police in New Zealand was not kept last session, and the reaccession of Mr Wilford as Minister of Justice gives ns poor hope of it later. Nor was there more than a passing mention of 'iriiif im" the naturalisation of New Zealand women married to aliens up to the position accepted by the British Parliament. Better things, howevt are foreshadowed in the status accorded in Auckland to two J.P.’s, Mrs N. E. Ferrief and Miss Jackson, in being permitted to preside over the Children’s ■ Court. Before leaving the matter of the Judiciary? we must note the honourable fulfilment of Mr Baldwin's promise to enfranchise Bricish women between twenty-one and thirty. Lord Astor’s unsuccessful Family Maintenance Bill cited the better position of wives’ and families of testators in Scotl d and New Zealand’. In three London hospitals the door has been Coc.d to women on represen-tatio-s by non students. Education is taking a favourable turn in the East. India, encouraged by Miss Margaret Wilson’s fine book, ‘ Daughters of India,’ following more gently, but equally firmly, the lead of Katherine Mayo’s ‘ Mother India,’ is advancing her women rapidly to positions of trust in the Civil Service. A woman magistrate is appointed in Northern India, where there is now a practising lawyer, in Rangoon a woman jnd,„e has also been appointed. The anti-purdah agitation is proceeding; many of the native queens keep purdah at home, but drop it when travelling beyond India. That attractive young ruler, Queen Sonriya of Afghanistan, is setting the pace for Moslem women as her husband is setting it for Moslem men. In Syria there is a reflection 'of the tine movement for girls’ education, sponsored in India by Dr Anne Besant, the Begum of Boplial, and Mrs Sarojini Naidn. Syrian schools' offer girls equal opportunity now. The Moslems of Palestine are now educating their girls. Favour-

able .consideration met tlio 1 English- i women teachers’ .representations for equal pay, before the Teacljers’lnstitute at Home. A strong move towards economic ' justice was made when the ‘lnterna-/ tional Labour Conference at Geneva voted by a large majority for equal pay for equal work. The National Union of Industrial Psychology in Britain announces an inquiry into conditions ' of housework, stressing the need for brightness, labour-saving appliances, and other counsels of betterment for the occupation of the majority of women. Most encouraging cases of sporadic advance of women come in from everywhere. In aviation, tile year has witnessed the marvellous feats of Lady Heath, Hying alone in her aeroplane from Cape to Cairo, IU,OOO miles, and of Lady Bailey’s great African flight, also alone: while Mrs Keith Miller, Hying with Captain Lancaster on a live-months’ trip from England to Australia, set up another record of endurance. A young' London girl, Mercedes Clleitue, swam both the English Channel and the more difficult Strait of Gibraltar. Next year we trust to record our own Miss Lily Copplestone’s victory over Cook Strait. Miss Elizabeth Scott, a twenty-nine-year-old British architect, won the prize of building the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford. Seventytwo designs were sent in. The Irish Free State has a woman town clerk, Miss Lamb. Ulster can show a woman High Sheriff, Mrs M'Mordic. In Scotland, the Rev. Vera Findlay, a brilliant collegian, ha,s just been appointed to a large church in Glasgow. As to suffrage, Japan has some hope ahead. South Africa has duly killed its annual Franchise Bill. China at the moment is in the melting pot. Suffrage was granted some time ago by the Canton Nationalists. In internationalism, there has been gratifying progress of South American women under the Pan-American movement originating in the United States. More will be heard of this. The world waits for the verdict of the Chinese National Government, about which one of the most hopeful features is the marriage of China’s young ruler, Chiang Kai-shek, with Mrs Sun Yatsen’s sister, said to be one of the best educated and most brilliant women in China. But the most important, event of the year was undoubtedly the Pan-Pacific Women’s Congress at Honolulu last August. The idea of Mr Alexander Ford, of the Pan-Pacific Union, financed by a group of sympathetic American millionaires, this congress, planned to bo the first of many, brought the women of the Pacific seaboard—white, brown, and yellow—together on wider lines than any yet achieved, and opens a fascinating and splendid vista of international understanding and co-operation. From Honolulu has already radiated good fellowship and admiration that have sot in friendly motion forces hitherto isolated, if not hostile. Twelve New Zealand delegates attended,. including the president of the Women’s Christian. Temperance Union, Mrs T. E. Taylor, and the president of the National Council of Women, Mrs C. A. Fraer, together with Christchurcheducationist Miss Emily Chaplin. In every centre of New Zealand its ablest women have reported on the devotion, the efficiency, and the charm of Oriental women delegates, above all those from China, and the power and attraction of the president, Miss Jane Addams, of America. Great are the hopes of Pacific co-operation raised hy this, the first congress of Pacific women. t . On that note of nearer hope m a vexed and threatening world, we do well to conclude our retrospect of 1928.