HUMANITARIAN LEGISLATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15892, 11 October 1913, Page 10

HUMANITARIAN LEGISLATION

THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN

(Faoit Oob Own Cobbespondent.)

AUCKLAND, October 9. Humanitarian msasurea which havo become law since the women of New Zealand were given the vote wore mentioned to the women assembled in the .Albert Hail yesterday to commemorate the granting of that vote by Mrs Pudncy, Auckland president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Some of the most important measures, she said, were the Infant Lifo Protection Act, the Act to regulate the adoption of children, the Industrial Schools Act Amendment, the Juvenile Smoking Suppression Act, nJid the Servants Registry Act. The Shop Assistants Act, which safeguarded the interests and health of shop girls and bettered the conditions'under which they worked, and the bivorce and Matrimonial Causes -Act,which granted an equal standard of morality, a divorce for wilful desertion for five years, for habitual drunkenness, failure to support a wife, or crulty, were both measures vitally important to women, and these had come into being since 1893. There was also the Criminal Code Amendment In the direction of purer morals, and an Act enabling women to receive compensation for slander without proving special damage, which had both been productive of much good. Everyone realised ■the benefits on women-'by tho Summary Legal Separation Act, while the Factory Act-recognised tho principle of equal - pay for equal work, and 'the Old-" age Pensions Act acknowledged the principle of the economic partnership of husband and wife. With regard to education and admission to the practice of the higher-paid professions, some splendid laws had been passed. Women could now practip9. ( t)ie law, and technical schools giving equality/ of opportunity to both sexes established. "The Destitute Persons Act, 1910," and " The Legitimation Act, .1908,''' had both improved matters in regard -to family life and the widows who had a child or children born in New ZeaJand, and had relieved many cases of necessity. The Crimes Amendment and the First Offenders Probation Acts had gone a long way towards helping on the young people, who .caraeywit.hin tneir scope. - jj?' Women,-concluded the speaker, were not. concerning themselves with politics to,the neglect of their homes, but to protect them. Much had been done for the protection of their homes and children, but much remained to be done. What was wanted was free representation in Parliament. On the twentieth anniversary of the granting of- suffrage it behoved them to make a big effort to have this, desired amendment in-the Franchise Act passed. ■