WOMEN IN POLITICS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23083, 7 July 1938, Page 17

WOMEN IN POLITICS

Sir* —Your correspondent Alice Weston feels aggrieved because of the paucity of women in Parliament, and well she may. However, women were given the vote by a solely men's Parliament., and without any suffragette movement. Indeed, most women were greatly surprised when they got the vote, aiid did not know much what to do with it! The effect has certainly been reflected in New Zealand legislation, but it falls far short of what might yet be. The remedy lies in the natural group system of government, as outlined in my previous letter. To illustrate, there are such bodies as the Women's Institutes, Mothers' League and several others. Under the group system, when any organisation is numerically sufficient to reach the quota, formed on the average of group memberships, to entitle it to representation in the national assembly, such is automatically available, tiie group electing its own delegates. Thus the purely women's organisations would be represented bv women chosen by their own members.

Such a system would be far preferable to the rather unseemly method we now have, where women of culture and refinement must face the silly hurlyburly of party political contests. I wouid add that, as the major groups generally would have more than one delegate, such could elect both men and women to Parliament. In this respect, women might fare pretty well, for it is my experience that men usually give women a fair show, and are more just and charitable toward them than are the members of their own sex.

Politically, with our precious Cabinetmaking, we are like a novice at carpentering: he tries to plane the wood against the grain. You can plane against the grain, but it is hard on the plane and on the man. and the result is a real botch of a job—just like our present political "box of tricks." Matamata. T. E. McMillan.