WOMEN COUNCILLORS.

NZ Truth, Issue 910, 5 May 1923, Page 14

WOMEN COUNCILLORS.

. The Hon. Mark Cohen, MJL.C, who has always ibeen an advocate of Women's Rights, has been urging that Dunedin should follow, the example of other centres by electing women to their City Council. Writing in the "Otago Daily Times" In advocacy of the candidature of Mn*. Leech, Mr. Cohen says: - \ \ "It could not be said that by endorsing her candidature they Were taking a leap in the dark, for the presence of women on the City Councils of other centres has been welcomed, and In all cases they have 'made good/% If Mayor Gunson, of Auckland, had been sounded he would have doubtless replied that in Councillor Melville (a member of the legal profession) he has an energetio and capable lieutenant, whose knowledge of political economy and of finance is equal to that of any of her male colleagues, while in Mrs. MoGuire, who concerns herself largely with social questions, he has a conscientious humanitarian. If y_bu go to (Wellington, the testimony of /Sir John Luke and Mr. R. A. Wright (the present Mayor), would unquestionably be that Mrs. McVicar was an invaluable helper in bringing to fruition . the scheme giving Wellington its ,pure milk supply, which has been such a conspicuous success. And, lastly, at the Christchurch City Council table there sits Mrs. McCombs, wife of the Labor member for Lytteltpn, and herself a distinguished graduate of the New Zealand University— -a lady with pronounced political proclivities, which aro distasteful to some folk, but who ;can hold her own with her male colleagues in any phase of civic administration and ,is not even unacquainted with the mysteries of "high finance.' That she has a considerable following In the Cathedral City is a recognised fact, and there are among her admirers those who declare that if she is ambitious she may yet-' become Chief Magistrate of that city and sit In the House of Representatives when it shall please Parliament ■•'to adopt proportional representation as the only equitable method of obtaining a true reflex of the people's will in respect to representation."