WOMEN AND FRANCHISE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 4 January 1926, Page 10

WOMEN AND FRANCHISE.

CANADIAN EXPEDIENCE. VOTES SWAYED BY PREJUDICE. w TORONTO, Dee. 21. ImirW 11 ’ aeeor(lill §' to the political Pnnr’ ' VGl i° * a . « roater factor in the Canadian elections last month than ever before. The statement may seem surprising in view of the fact that out ot 000 candidates onlv four were womon, and only one was elected. But tne politicians discovered more effeem e means of rousing the women votSlS i ■ U if erc,st ail<l securing tlieir votes and influence. They not only voted in increased numbers, but they were more acave m tellhig tlieir menfolk how to vote.

11 J 11 ' ®. ntario the appeal to women was .o bring our boys and girls back home from the United States. ’ ’ One. Liberal candidate relates that one of his women electors *said to him: “I understand this election is a plebiscite on whether we are to bring our boys home and that you are opposed to the proposal. ” r

During the last two or three days of the campaign it is related' that the Conservative organisation sent out in towns and cities hundreds of women canvassers, whose argument: addressed to the housewives' ran as follows: "If the Government, is returned the factorv your husband works in-will be closed. You do not want your husband to be out of work this winter, do you?” Liberal candidates testify that in the last 48 hours thousands of votes slipped away from them on this appeal. In Quebec it is said that it was the Liberal canvassers who were effective with women. There, war was made an issue. Mr. Meighen's "Readv, aye ready” proposed response to Mr. Churchill's appeal against-Turkey three years ago wa*s recalled. Ac cording to Conservative observers a fresh unrest in Europe, was pictured; the implications of the Locarno pact were given a sinister colouring; the spectre of a new European war was created and the probability of Canadians being impressed for cannon fodder emphasised. Whether these allegations are true, it is said that in Conservative committee rooms there was not a single inquiry or offer of support from a woman voter. Woman suffrage sceptics, with the evidence of the recent election at hand, deliver a harsh .judgment. They declare that) the advent of women has lowered- the plane of political discussion, and that it has increased the influence of demagogues and of appeals to prejudice.