Hawke's Bay Herald MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 1886. WOMEN'SSUFFRAGE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7527, 30 August 1886, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 1886. WOMEN'SSUFFRAGE.

In the May number of the Nineteenth Century Mrs M. .G. Fawcett replies to Mrs Chapman's article on Women's Suffrage, of which we lately gave a' summary. Mrs Ghapman, it will he remembered, advanced a number of reasons why women should not have the electoral franchise, and assorted that'as a rule women had no strong desire to possess that privilege. •On this latter, point Mrs Fawcett joins issue first, citing'the names of a large number of notable women who have taken 1 a more or less active part in advocating women's suffrage. " A page," she says, "could easily be filled with names, but I -have merely taken a selection hastily and almost at random from among thegreat army of women who have done good work for the world in various ways, and- who have joined their forces with those .of the men and women who are endeavoring to remove the electoral disabilities of women. Of course it is not contended that among the women whom we think of when we speak of thinkers and workers there is absolute upaniiuity on this or any other subject, but for every, name among women thinkers and workers which can bo quoted as opposed to wpmen's suffrage I should not mind undertaking to quote at least a dozen, and that without going very far afield, who support it. " With regard to the masses of women Mrs Fawcett contends that there are indications that they do desire to be .enfranchised, and in support of her contention she points' to the fact that all papers.' intended for womenj' from The Queen downwards, are favorable to women's suffrage. ! ' Petitions," she adds, ", have repeatedly been sent up to Parliament signed by a, very largo majority, of' the wo'uion householders in a particular place. The petition from Hyde,, near Manchester, . may be quoted as an example, where but of 70Q women householders 608 petitioned Parliament to grant them the suffra'KOjand year after year for eighteen years hundreds of thousands of women have petitioned Parliament to pas 3 the Women's Suffrage Bill. At the Trades' Union Congress the working women have annually carried a resolution affirming tho principle of women's suffrage. In 1885 this resolution was carried by 70 to 0. In schools nnd colleges for girls where there are debating societies it is possible to gather some indication of the tendency of public opinion among young women. A short time ago at Newnham College, Cambridge, a resolution condemning women's suffrage .was lost -by 56 to 13. At a working women's college in London, in which there are several hundred women, some of the members 'of the college were lately talking over with the secretary desirable subjects for discussion at tho debating society. ' The secretary' suggested women's suffrage, hut tho women present objected on the ground that a debate was no golod on a subject on which Htf were agreed 1 '; there was, they urged, no possibility- of getliiig anyone 1 to oppose a'm'o'positiori'so obviously just 'dsllidt women h6uselioldersan<j ratepayers should be! "allowed to' vote 1 in Parliamentary elections."' With"' regard to Mrs' Chapman's assertion that the two sexes are not mentally canal; ' Mrs Fawcett admits that difjere'njs views arc entertained even w H ongsj; \)n ka<fe % : ' the "^omen's suffrage iHOveniffnfc as Jo tho comprjpitjyo natural oapanity of men" and wgnicn, but they contend that, that point is not of any real importance to the question, seeing how many men of small capacity possess tho franchise, ".' It is certain," she says, " that wluitevcr'the inherent uptural capa- . city of a woman's wind may he, its development largely depends on education, circumstances, and opportunity; 'AH that the advocates of women's rights have wished or claimed on bohalf of womon is that, whatever their natural gifts may

be, the opportunity of developing those gifts'should not be denied totliein. . . . The question in not whether men and women are equal, but whether tho conditions by -which men and women are sur rounded are calculated to bring out and make the best of their natural powers, whatever.thcso may be. With regard to the effect'which a larger measure of freedom . has had in developing the natural capacities of women's minds, I think we have every reason to be satisfied with the result of the experiment so far as it has gone. The respect for the individual rights of every human being, which was partly the cause.and partly the outcome of the French Revolution, marks the beginning of the modern era so far as the posi--tion of women is concerned. The great ' discovery that women were'human beings, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the samo winter and summer as a man is, is conveniently dated : iv England by the publication in 1792 of Mary Wollstonecrarfc's ' Vindication of the Rights of .Women;'. Previous to that liardly any woman, save here and there a saint, a queen, or a king's mistress, had done any work which left its mark on the historyof art, literature, orscience. What- . ever the natural gifts of women may be, - before that time they were undeveloped in comparison with a later period. Since that time we have had indeed among women no Shakespeare, no Dante, no Beethoven, no Newton, bnt in our scarcely completed century we have had, in literature alone, women whose works the world will not willingly let die. Jane Aristen, the- two ' Brontes, Mrs Browning,, and George Eliot aro. not a poor harvest for one nation to have reaped as a result of giving greater scope andgreater opportunities of development to the natural powers, whatever they may be, of one-half of its inhabitants. Our love and admiration for the great women given to us during the last 'half -ceutnry, as a result of tlie comparative freedom accorded to Englishwomen by advancing civilisation, leads us to hope that yet greater women may be given to us in the time to come, when a larger measure of liberty and greater opportunities of development will have been won. We are moving and growing slowly towards larger ideas as to the capacity of women and what it is fitting that they should or should not do. When I was being shown over the Savings Bank Department of the General Post-office the excellence of tho work of the women there was specially pointed out to me. Taking down one of the heavy ledgers, and showing with official pride the beautifully neat columns of figures, the gentleman who was then head of the branch said. 'At one time I did not believe that females were capable, of making figures like these.' I smiled and hoped that further surprises were in store ; for him." After giving a number of . other instances of the excellence of ! women's work, Mrs' Fawcett winds up this part of her paper as " follows ; — " Women's suffrage will not come, when it does come, as an isolated phenomenon ; it : will come as a- necessary corollary of other changes which have been gradually ' and steadily modifying during this century the social history of our country. It will ■ be a political change, not of a very great , or extensive character in itself, based upon 1 social, c lucatio.ial, and economic changes ' which have already taken place. It will have the effect -of adjusting tlie political machinery, of the country to the altered social conditions of its inhabitants. 'The' revolution has been quietly taking place for at least two generations.; the political 1 change will not be a revolution, but a 3 ■ public recognition by the State that the lot of women in England is no longer what it was at the beginning of the century."