NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY Registered for transmission through the post as a newspaper. SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1925. WOMAN'S ADVANCE

Northern Advocate, 11 July 1925, Page 4

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY Registered for transmission through the post as a newspaper. SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1925. WOMAN'S ADVANCE

Sydney newspapers record as one of the features of the recent opening of the New South Wales Parliament the presence, for the first time, of a lady member, Miss Preston Stanley. She is not the first to be elected to an Australian Parliament, for Western Australia already has two lady members; but Miss Stanley has the distinction of being the pioneer woman in the oldest Parliament of Australia. It may be that in that Ho.use she will have more than a purely legislative mission to perform. The legislators of the Mother State have been prone to enact scenes on the floor of the House as well as legislation, and it may be hoped that the presence of a member of the sex that is entitled to rcspect and honour will exercise a restraining influence and render the proceedings less unedifying than they have sometimes been. It was only in 1918 that the Women's Legal Status Act threw open to the women of New South Wales the doors of Parliament, the Courts and other institutions. In September, 1893, New Zealand led the way by enfranchising women, and ten years later the new Australian Commonwealth gave them the right to vote. Another decade passed, however, before New South Wales granted the franchise to women, but they were still refused the right to sit in Parliament. In time, of course, the men had to capitulate, but woman's battle was not won, for it took her nearly seven years to gain a seat in Parliament. New Zealand, of course, has not yet had a woman legislator. It is curious that In New South Wales women have been so long in storming the Parliamentary citadel. In many of ; the 'electorates about Sydney the female population outnumbers the male, but apparently no woman candidate commands the united support of her sex. It would be unfortunate, however, if politics were ever' to become" : a ■contest between the sexes, and if 'votes 'weie guided by considerations of sex. In such an event • urbfttf 'frfepreientatiori would be largely feminize, and the country would complain eVen : more 'loudly 1 than did John Knox about '' The' Monstrous Regimen of Women." It is interesting _to think that Australians as a rule pride themselves on their readiness to embrace new ideas. They are quite untainted by the crusted Toryism, the hidebound subservience to tradition that characterise less enlightened communities. Yet "Conservative" England set an example. There the Act of 1918 recognised that if woman is competent to ehooso legislators there is no valid Teason why she should not make laws, and the grant of the franchise, though limited by

age, was accompanied by the Parliamentary qualification. The year following Lady Astor was returned for Plymouth, and that lady, whom certain Labour members persist, in defiance of Parliamentary convention and also of good manners, on styling "Nancy," has graced Westminster ever since. In the Parliament elected in 1922 she was reinforced by two lady members. In 1923 no fewer than eight were returned, and in the present Parliament there are four. It is significant, too, that not only did the Conservatives, despite their Toryism, send the first woman to Westminster, but three out of four elected last year stood in the Conservative interest. And iu Britain for long women have played a very prominent part in local government. But to see woman in all her emancipated glory one must go to America. There she is übiquitous and irrepressible. She has sat in Congress. She has invaded the State Legislatures in battalions. She occupies important positions in the Diplomatic Corps. She is on the Bench, not merely in juvenile Courts, but in the Supreme Courts. Indeed, to judge from an American compilation devoted to woman's achievements in that country, she practises every profession. save that of executioner, and we have n"> doubt whatever that she acquits herself most creditably in her manifold roles. It is incontestable that women who seek the wider sphere of public or semi-public life can accomplish very useful work. Yet when all issaid and done, it takes many sorts to make a world, and those who, from choice or necessity, cultivate the domestic shrine render the community an indispensable service.