WOMAN'S RIGHTS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1199, 22 February 1895, Page 16

WOMAN'S RIGHTS.

There is now one country in the world in which the political power of men and women is theoretically equal. We refer to South Australia, where women have not Only the franchise, but the right to' sit in the Legislature. New Zealand led the way by giving the franchise, South Australia " went one better," as the Americans have it, a year after by giving both the franchise and the right of return, wherein it must be admitted that South Australia has achieved the logical superiority. How that will work out in practice remains to be seen. The critics on the Continent are predicting all kinds of absurdities and evils. But the only practical evidence which exists on the subject is the evidence supplied by the municipality of Onehung*a in New Zealand. If one swallow made a summer it would be certain that the experience of Mrs Yates* mayoralty is fatal to the claim

of woman to be admitted to practical public wOrk. Mrs Yates was not wise in her methods> and tbe public of Onehunga was to an appreciable extent shamefully rude. If one swallow made a summer, we should say that women are not properly equipped for the detail work of government, and that when they attempt it the result is not a good thing for the sex. But then one swallow never did make a summer, and never will. We may ask here two pertinent questions: Are Mayors of the sterner sex always ideally wise ? and are they always treated with respect ? Moreover, Mrs Yates showed in one matter of vital importance to the public welfare of the citizens a clear-sightedness, public* spirit and unflagging determination which have never been surpassed in municipal history, and. not often equalled. Going out of New Zealand municipal affairs we find the evidence of woman's fitness in the remarkable success of the only woman who has been entrusted with the work of factory inspection. That experiment ought certainly t© be extended by appointing more women and paying them better. Going outside of New Zealand, we find much evidence of the fitness of women for public work. For instance, the one bright spot j in the hidebus condition of Chicago, so graphically and truthfully described by Mr Stead, is the remarkable success that has attended the intervention of women in public affairs. "Wherever sanitary work in the great corn city is good, and wherever social improvement has been effected, it is due directly to the influence of women, who have by their organisation, lo'fts spirit, and determined interference, comjiejled the men to administer the they ought to be administered. Their work has induced many thinking people- to believe that, if ever ChicagOM-eeases to be the hotbed of corruption it is at present, it will be due largely*fto'the efforts of the women. We must take into account the great fact that women are everywhere

/ regarded as morally superior to men. While all men admit that superiority, and many regard religion as a matter of police, useful especially for keeping woman from falling from her high estate, on the recognition of which every social law and custom is based, it is logical to ask them whether the introduction of that moral superiority into the conduct of all public affairs without exception will not be for the good of society, and the wellbeing| of the race. The widening of the sphere of woman's work in the United Kingdom may be, in tact, regarded as a favourable reply to that logical demand. The only thing which opposes the logical conclusion is the great mass of satiric writing and caricaturing, all ot which is the reverse of polite, while much of it is as feeble as it is vulvar For the value of that sort of thing we°need not seek outside of New Zealand. It opposed woman s suffrage with all the force of impolite prediction. But the women of New Zealand exercised the franchise immediately they obtained it in a manner which certainly compared most favourably with the electoral work of the lords of creation/ Ihe evidence on the whole gives us no cause to fear that South Australia has made a mistake. The story of how the women have won their position ; in that : colony is very well told in the January number of the Review of Reviews, from the introduction of the first Suffrage -Bill bythe Hon Dr Stirling in 1885 to the final success last December. It was wen in spite of the bitterest opposition and in the teeth of a hostile press, which latter is a sufficiently remarkable fact. We need not enter into the details of the struggle, the petitions presented, the manoeuvres and machinations, nor need we trace the growth of the demand from a restricted to a complete franchise. The women asked only for the suffrage, and their friends wanted no more. To their enemies they owe the right to sit in Parliament, and the right to vote if they like at elections through the Post Office. Clauses giving them these rights were added to the Bill during its passage through the Legislature, in the hope that the Bill would thereby be defeated. But the hope was defeated, and the women got the right to vote by post and the entry into the Legislature, as well as the franchise. Thus the complete political equality' of woman was established for the first time in the world's history. The evidence supplied in various parts of the world en-

courages the belief, as we have pointed out, that the South Aust-alian Legislature has - not, ■ saa.de a mistake. What light facts will throw on the new departure, depends on the number of women who may apply to the electors to let them exercise their right of entry into the Legislature. You may take a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. South Australia has taken women to the Legislature. It remains to be seen if she will enter in. If she does, we think, f}r the reasons Ave have given, that she will do good work there.