Golden Jubilee of Women’s Franchise

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 222, 18 September 1943, Page 4

Golden Jubilee of Women’s Franchise

During these fifty years the women of New Zealand have had the Franchise, many Acts have been passed giving equality between the sexes, in 1914, women were eligible for Parliament; they arc eligible for all municipal offices, even mayoralty, they may act as lawyers, doctors, inspectors for hospitals, can become officiating ministers under the Marriage Act, may be Justices of the Peace and employed as women police. In common with other centres throughout the Dominion, Palmerston North is joining iu the Golden Jubilee celebrations by holding a Thanksgiving service at the Opera House to-morrow at ‘2.30 p.m. Mrs. J. Harris (Turakina), president of the Manawatu branch of the N.C.W., will preside aud the speakers on the past, present and future will be Mrs. Linda Bennett, Mrs. Elsa Lovell, and Mrs. W. J. Mountjoy, juur. Major Tyler will lead in prayer and Sister Noelene Finnic, deaconess of St. Andrew’s Church, will read the Litany. The Mayoress, Mrs. A. L. Mansford, will attend, and on the platform will be some 30 ladies who exercised their right to vote iu 1893, also our women J.’sP. To a Palmerston North lady, Mrs. K. F. Inkpen, has come tho honour of writing the words and music of the song which was chosen to mark this occasion by the Wellington committee for the special broadcast last evening and it is hoped to present it on Sunday. Mrs. Inkpen chose “Women of the Nation” as the title and its theme is a challenge with a catchy refrain which goes with a great swing. In the message of the jubilee booket “May we bring to the greater tasks ahead, the courage, the devotion, the faith and the self-sacrifice that the women of yesterday brought to tho fight for the Franchise. They won for us the right to vote, it is ours to use that vote to secure yet greater triumphs for the cause of God and Home and Humanity.” The spring .national dairy bull sale and show will be held on October 14, and the auctioneers, the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Go., Ltd., announce in this issue the numbers of entries received. -See auction columns.