WOMEN VOTERS.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXIX, Issue 3999, 27 November 1918, Page 3

WOMEN VOTERS.

In view of the announced date of the English elections some figures reI cently published in England are interesting. The coming political struggle, is on,e of the most momentous yet held in British history. For the first time the women citizens are going to be a vital factor in the life of the nation, and already the Conservative press is busy trying to count heads. The Labour Party did it immediately the vote to women was granted. Needless to say they have not reached the same conclusion. Any counting on precedent may be fraught with considerable surprises. In London the big borough of Hammersmith, largely composed of a working-class population, is one of those where a great increase is to be found. Under the old register, says "The Queen," some 16,000 men alone were enfranchised, whereas now the number has been in creased to 30,000, with 22,000 women to be added to the number. The city of Westminster, with its curious mixture of social degrees blended with offices, has virtually doubted its register, and its women voters' equal those of the almost entirely working-class Hammersmith, though in Westminster this proportion of women is out of a total of 63,000 men. In South Paddington and Clapham, women outnumber men, in both cases by just 1000, 15,000 of the total 29,000 potential voters in Clapham, and 13,000 out of 25,000 in South Paddington, being women. The Balham and Tooting division with 39,000 names has a big preponderance of men ; so, too, have the residential districts of Streatham and Putney. Chelsea registered 11,QOO men and women, South Kensington has' more men than women. Rotherhithe has 8,000 women and 12,----000 men. In Marylebone men voters are more than double the numbers of the 21,000 women. How long the present undemocratic manner of voting will be tolerated few can say, _ but with the principle of adult franchise as the basis of revolted Germany it cannot be long denied to all the world.