CAN WOMEN SPEAK?

Northern Advocate, 26 March 1926, Page 3

CAN WOMEN SPEAK?

WHAT HANSARD SAYS. MISS WILKINSON AN EASY FIRST LONDON, February 8. If Parliamentary oratory were an effective measure of power over... the country, it can be asserted that Parliamentary women have a big influence over the affairs of the nation. That accurate measurer of words, Hansard, gives us interesting information about the capacity of our women members of Parliament to get up and tell the House what they think, and if length of speech be taken as a gauge we find that of the four women who have seats in the House which holds 615 members all told, Miss Wilkinson has contributed 83 columns of speech, Lady Astor 42, and the others follow in their wake.

One shudders to imagine what would have happened had many other members out-talked Miss Wilkinson, for she is well up, 39th, in the list of speakers as measured by quantity. Lady Astor takes the 100th place. It may be added as a means of checking these figures that the most fluent of the male M’s.P. contribution made more than 333 columns of Hansard.

But a .formal speech is not the means of getting business dons in the House. The art of asking questions is a notable one in Parliamentary .warfare and in this Lady Astor scores over Miss Wilkinson. This is not ■ quite what one would have expected because Lady Astor, being a member of the political party in power, would be expected to worry her own colleagues less than Miss Wilkinson, who is a member of the Opposition and regards it as her job to criticise the Government. As a matter of fact Miss Wilkinson only asked 102 questions while Lady Astor asked 124.

There is one other test of a member of Parliament’s devotion to duty—attendance at divisions. Miss Wilkinson gets top marks, for out of 506 divisions she recorded her vote in 297, Duchess of Atholl 252, Mrs Phillipson 220', and Lady Astor 127. This is the more interesting in that the Duchess of Atholl being a member in the Government, would have been expected' to do duty in the. lobby with at least as : much diligence as a woman member of the Opposition. : ' ' ' ’ ' It is interesting to record that since every Parliamentary division - takes 6n an average ten minutes, Miss Wilkinson must have spent out of the Parliamentary year of 1925, six full Parliamentary days in walking up and down division lobbies to record her vote for Labour.