NEW ZEALAND POLITICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20112, 24 November 1928, Page 22

NEW ZEALAND POLITICS.

APATHY OF WOMEN. Tho apathy of New Zealand women in politics and particularly in regard to the •women-in-parliament movement was strongly condemned by Mrs. G. E. Maguiro at a meeting of tho Leaguo of Penwomen yesterday afternoon. Mrs. Maguire, who was the otficial Rcfoim candidate for Auckland East at tho 10rent election, was introduced to the members by the president of tho league, Mrs. M. Stuart Boyd.

Although she had esteemed it a great privilege to have been able to take part in tho recent elections Mrs. Maguire said that unless tho attitude of tho New Zealand women altered in regard to politics there would be no hope of getting women into Parliament. A good committee and tho support of friends was helpful but not sufficient. She had found during tho election campaign that tho women wore not actively against their sex entering the House of Representatives, they were just apathetic. Many of. theni simply followed their husbands in the matter o£ voting. Tho women-in-purliament movomcut itself was a great and good movement, and a woman could not go into Parliament without doing some good, slio was sure. As regards tho speaker's campaign, sho was not in favour of prohibition or of Bible-in-schools. Sho' realised that those views lost hor many women's votes, but they were her convictions and sho had to stand by them. Mrs. Maguire strongly criticised many women's associations in Auckland who prided themselves on the fact that they had no connection with politics. Politics wero merely national housekeeping, and legislation for women and children was what the women candidates were interested in. Yet, with more than half the population consisting of women, and despite the fact that it was 35 years since women got the franchise, there were still no women in Parliament. New Zealand women were loath to speak upon politics or to betray an interest in them. Women with influence, who ought to be behind the women-ill-parliament movement, instead looked on it as a lowering of the standard of womanhood. Until tho women of New Zealand realise that there is no disgrace in one of their sex wanting to get into ■Parliament," said Mrs. Maguire, "wo will never make headway in the movement," Who was nioro ablo to legislato .for a child than the mother? It was the mother who toiled and reasoned out tho character of her child, and yet that mother with her wonderful experience, that mother who had made fine citizens of her children, was not wanted to help in tho governing of her country. She should be needed by every phase of society, and yet, no matter what her capabilities, her ideas and her ideals might be, sho was not wanted.

" Surely," said Mrs. Maguire, 'it is reasonable to have representation in Parliament of the greater half of the population?" Women, she thought, should co-operate with each other no matter what their party. It was not party government they were after, but tho good of the whole country, and if women cooperated. and discussed their ideas they could minimise their mistakes and generally "round off the corners." In conclusion Mrs. Maguire said that until tho women of all parties united in some sort of political movement tp raise the status of their sex and to give them a better idea of politics there was no hope of any woman going into Parliament in New Zealand. '