WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

Otago Witness, Issue 2902, 27 October 1909, Page 26

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

LONDON, October 19. Mr Winston Churchill, at Dundee, Tef erring to t-Ee suffragette tactics, said : " Their silly disorder and petty violence will never * induce any Government; tc concede the franchise. Their advocates must first convert the substantial majority of our eober-mindjed community. The frenzy of the few is no substitute for the earnest conviction of millions, and as ' long as the present tactics continue 1 f-hall be unable to assist them." October 20. While Mr Winston Churchill was addressing a meeting of 3000 men at Dundee a number of suffragettes, despite the elaborate barricades around the hall, entered a neighbouring garret and broke the skylight with a stone, which crashed into th© hall. Five suffragettes were arrested, including one who hid in a chimney in her attempt to escape the police. October 21. The suffragists tried to destroy the telegraph wires and thus prevent the transmission of a report of Mr Runciman's speech at Radcliffe. Several arrests were made. The Rev. Charles Matthews, of Australia, in an address at the National Union of Women Workers' Conference at Portsmouth, declared that the woman voter in Australia had neither advanced . nor retarded reform. She disappointingly j failed to rise supeinor to the somewhat ! corrupt political atmosphere. Her often ' pathetic belief in the ideal of home kept Australian Socialism sane, and would prove a safeguard against doctrines which •would menace family life and religion.