THE New Zealand Herald FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1913. SUFFRAGETTE OUTRAGES. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15233, 21 February 1913, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1913. SUFFRAGETTE OUTRAGES. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS.

Compared with the attempted burning of a theatre and the destruction of mail matter., the use of bombs to destroy a private house—unfinished and unoccupied seem a, mild exhibition of suffragette vindictiveness. , It will occur to every normal person, however, that the trend of British suffragette militancy..is constantly ' towards outrage in a more violent form, and that" the miscalculation which even aynamitards are liable to make might easily: have converted destruction of property into destruction of human life. Had loss of life occurred as the result r.f this attempt to persuade Mr LloydGeorge that he should be more active in the cause of electoral equality we should presumably have heard that carpenters and plasterers with votes had no claim to any consideration from women without votes and that in any case they should know better than to-be in any way associated with an obnoxious member of an objectionable Cabinet. The pre sent suffragette plea is, of course, "for ?U militancy short of taking human. life," which in the light ox recent events can hardly mean more than that the shadow of the scaffold has still a restraining influence. None can doubt, however, thst this last', reservation will sooner /r later be ignored by one or other of: the hysterical creaturer. who have Income the hypnotised victims 6l criminal suggestions and who . are the mere took of cooler and shrewder agitators. There is a spirit in every movement which attracts to it those who become fascinated by its manifestations, and unhappily there is in the United Kingdom a considerable recruiting ground for the self-out-lawed legion of the suffragettes. Where the women • outnumber the men by over a million, and where, as a consequence, men have had an undue advantage in marriage, " there must be a very considerable, prooor-

tion of; dissatisfied single women and unhappy wives who eagerly attach themselves to. a. fanatical movement which offers them an outlet for all their bitterness. In the very nature of things the most dangerous faction soon assumes control of any.organisation which commits itself to violent and abnormal methods the movement 'thus embodied speedily -becomes quite.indifferent to the sense of conduct which guides th'? actions of ail normal men and women.,n Evil becomes good; wrong becomes right; lawlessness becomes -'"lawful';.' frenzy grows as an increasing number of abnormal persons are' drawn into the ever-growing'whirl of frenzy with its vicious - but potential . suggestion. Movements of ; this character -are a veritable . contagion, and continue until they exhaust themselves by their own preternatural violence or until an indignant society ; rouses itself to crush them by that intense public opinion which is a counter suggestion. .';■: '>'''";■-'': ,-O'V '. : .- : - ■;:;:■' ' ; "' ; .

'■'■ New Zealanders could look upon this astounding suffragette frenzy more philosophically were it not that it is probably having a most disastrous effect upon the great woman's suffrage movement of which it claims to be a part. In this Dominion, as in Australia, women vote on a complete equality with men. Since we have never been troubled with suffragettes, very few colonials know ; of any reason -why women should not vote. There was no excitement when adult suffrage was established; there has been no difficulty since men and women maintain, the same friendly attitude towards one another as existed when only men went to the polling booths. We hear occasionally of the "fight for women's suffrage" in the colonies, but this is a mere figure of speech, a pleasant phrase which hurts nobody and, apparently, appeals to those who use it like the- blessed word " Mesopotamia." There was no fight. ; It was given in the hesitating spirit with which men give presents" of doubtful acceptability, and was received in the cautious manner natural ■■■;■■ to women when they fear they are accepting undesirable responsibility. The experiment has been successful because we have no superfluous women and have consequently no embittered section which in blind protest against fate takes advantage of a political difference to turn in hysterical frenzy upon mankind.. A The very existence of the : suffragettes seems to show that there is at Home very excellent reason for an antagonism to adult suffrage which with our colonial impetuosity we have ascribed to the ingrained conservatism of Englishmen. As for there being any potency in their peculiar arguments, it is contrary to the national character for men to 'be influenced by .fear- or persuaded r; by |; threats, while it is easily conceivable -that the vast majority -of /; self-respecting women will dissociate themselves unqualifiedly from any affiliation not only -.with their outrages but with their • political claims; Women would certainly never have obtained votes in the colonies if suffragettes had pleaded the case for them with hammers, matches and bombs; most colonial women would : have been ashamed to take votes at the price.