WOMAN'S RESPONSIBILITY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 23 March 1922, Page 5

WOMAN'S RESPONSIBILITY.

BILL BY LADY ASTOR.

..INTERESTING DISCUSSION.

BY CABLE—PEESS ASSOCIATION-tCOPYEIGHT LONDON, March 21. ! While Lady Astor, who was th« first woman to introduce & measure in the British Parliament, was introducing an amending Bill in the House of Commons, Viscount UHswater was drawing attention to the subject of coercion of wives in the House of Lords. He said that if we want to maintain respect for the law it was necessary that the law* should be strictly in accord with present customs, thoughts, and social relations. We must, therefore, abandon the presumption that a husband would coerce his wife. Lord Buckmaster took the opposite view. Husbands, he said, continued to coerce their wives. Lord Birkenhead agreed that the sußject required reconsideration, and he proposed to set up an expert committee to report. Following the Peel case, Lady Astor has introduced a Bill in the House of Commons, amending the law in relation to the presumption of coercion in the case of offences committed by married women. •