VOTES FOR WOMEN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20415, 23 May 1928, Page 8

VOTES FOR WOMEN

EXTENSION IN BRITAIN. BILL IN HOUSE OF LORDS. (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, May 22. (Received May 22, at 11 p.m.) In the House of Lords the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, moving the second reading of the Votes for Women Bill, said he looked forward to men and women equally sharing the burden of the Empire. They had slowly built up a democracy to which they were now setting a coping stone. ; , Lord Haldane said he believed that the decisive majority in the House of. Commons was endorsed by a great mass of public opinion. Lord Banbury, in moving the rejection of the Bill, claimed that there was no mandate at the last election for such a Bill. Previous extensions of the franchise did not result in increased interest in politics. Earl Beauchamp pointed out that all the opponents of the Bill were Conservatives. Absentees from the House of Commons’ division on the measure . included three members of Cabinet and twelve junior Ministers. He objected to an increase in plural voting, a fact which made it more expensive to enter Parliament. The Duke of Northumberland said that the Bill represented a breach of the pledge to call a party conference on the subject, when it would have been accompanied by a redistribution of scats. The Reform of the Lords Act, 1918, has lowered the standard of political morality and led to the creation by the Government of the day of enormous funds for propaganda. in the electorate by means of the sale of honours. Lord Newton, Viscount Sumner, Lord Jolce, and Lord Ampthill spoke against the Bill, and the debate was adjourned. —Australian Press Association.