WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 14 April 1927, Page 5

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

UPON REACHING 21 YEARS. MAJORITY FEMALE VOTE. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPY RIGHI LONDON, April 13. Reliable political correspondents assert that Cabinet, after succesisve deliberations, has decided that Mr Baldwin’s pledge of 1924 must be carried out, and votes conferred on all women of the age of 21 years, and on all women precisely qu the same terms as men. it is estimated that this equalisation of the frant-base will mean the addition of an electorate from lour and a-lialf to five million women, and women will outnumber men at the next election by at least two million.

Cabinet rejected an equalisation by raising the -age of men to 25 years and lowering the age of women. It is understood that the excess of women then would have been even greater. There was also a proposal to refer the matter to a conference of all parties, but Labour, in advance, refused to participate, {several Conservative papers strongly oppose “votes for girls.'’ Women at present get the vote at> the age of 30 years.

CONS ERV ATI VE OPPOSITION. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, April 12. The idea of universal suffrage for women at 21 has come to a. -point a.s the result of the efforts of a section of the Conservative Party, but it is being vigorously opposed by other sections of the Conservative Party. It is emphasised in these quarters that if the proposals were carried into effect a large majority of the constituencies would have more women voters than men. The Prime Minister is expected to announce the Governmnt course of action before Parliament adjourns for Easter.