WOMEN IN POLITICS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 10002, 20 June 1918, Page 3

WOMEN IN POLITICS

(To the Editor "N.Z. Times.”) Sir, —Ever since man began to trickle on this earth woman has wanted her own way, and it now seems, due to war exigencies, that she is about to prevail. During recent years woman has thrown off the' domestic yoke and entered tho political and commercial sphere. For some considerable time past tho Women’s Political Association, Women’s AntiConscription League, W.C.T.U., and women deputationists' generally have been arraigning authority and demanding a reconstruction of political and other existing conditions. It seems to tho writer that the late female caucus held in tho Town Hall must have an influence for good, as it had for its object the upliftment of their own sex. While I warmly endorse women’s efforts to bring about bettor social conditions, I strongly oppose thorn dabbling in politics on many grounds, the two most important being: That members of a Stato who are not capable of discharging tho first and highest duty of a citizwn, which is to defehd it when in peril, to tho death by force of arms, cannot claim an equal right to direct its policy—more especially on questions of peace or war—with those, who are. Tho second is that as all government rests ultimately upon force, women ought not to bo entrusted with the making of laws or conditions which they are incapable in tho last resort of enforcing.—l am, etc., "BEDROCK.”