"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3444, 16 March 1920, Page 55

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

'Specially Written for the Ladies* P^s.) THE NEW YEAR. January 5. "Here we are again!" as the clowns say, past another milestone on the journev. Hope, like the spring song of birds, rises ever in the.heart from year to year. We failed last year,., but this year we aim again at "the self-same mark' our ideal, though' we mav fail again ; : but the dignity, r the strength of life, is. not so much in the victory as in the fight; not more in the medals than in the wounds. And that phantom, happiness, which we oursue has led us over miles of weariness in anticipation of good-to-be. Nor mocked us, though the shadow be unreal, for it leads ns to our soul's fulfilment "sometime, somewhere." For there is no "At last!'' in which to hold and grasp the things we love ; the things we need ; the things we have sacrificed to gain. We toil to reach the peak of our desire, and when we reach it we are miles away, for our desire has travelled on before us, and beckons from another peak: and so climb through cloud-mist, and .the clouds lie beneath us, silver-lined, and we attain "the final goal."

And "it's a long, long way to Tipperary," and we shall never get there wherever our Tipperary be, by "falling out" at the bottom of the first hill. First be sure where Tipperary lies, nor waste yoixr strength in going in the wrong direction, for the "undoing" is harder than the "doing," and the'"something in the world amiss" is losing the obscure turning that leads "right there." What the world needs now more than anything eke. is inspired leaders to call to the people "Come on" sure of the fray. But blind leaders of the blind will land us all into the ditch. The nation that won the war has grip and courage enough to win the battles of peace, if they understand why they must be fought. The initial blunder of the peace has been in expecting a new heaven and a new earth. New worlds do not appear in ;a moment; ages go to their making, and we have not cleared up the debris of the old world which the war shattered, yet. There was a good deal of wisdom in the recent remark of an M.P. that the piles of the newworld must be sunk deep, as there will be so many tall storeys built upon it And high illusions. Mr Churchill, speaking at Sunderland on Saturday, said: "The break-up of the forces which sustain the present National Government could only result in pushing the Labour party into power, at a period in their development when they are # quite unfitted for the responsibility of government, and when, through' their incompetence, they would come hopelessly to grief at our expense." The Labour party of England are quite unfitted to govern the nation. The class distinction has been too wide, the class prejudices too deep. It will take a century or more before education and self-development enlightens the understanding of the British labouring class to give the wisdom necessary to govern a nation whose politics affect the whole world. The Labour mass outlook in this country goes no further than the interest of the working man—it scarcely includes the interests of the working woman—a sort of beggar-my-neighbour-to-make-me-rich policy. They seek to destroy capital—not to control it. We do not want class government at this moment of the nation's history; we must pull together. And yet the Coalition Government seems doomed; the' men who onoe belonged to the Liberals are voting Laboui at every by-election, because the Labout Government would give high salaries tfl all workers. . The terrible income tax, which deprives a man of more than half of his earnings, is having the disastrous effect of killing thrift. In my opinion the orgy of spending in which all classes are indulging il the result in great measure of the taxation which takes the greater part of, in« come. The Government says, like th< bov watching the eating of the apple, "give us your core, Bill," and the public respond, ."There ain't going to bo n<s core." And the most thrifty men and women of the past days who laboured for the good of their family, and incidentally for the country, making provision for the future, refuse to deny themselves for a wasteful Government, and spend as they go. With the New Year prices have gone up again on many things. British butter is 4s 6d. a pound; coal has risen 2s a ton, the railway fares have risen as a consequence, and as a result of cfearer freight almost all' commodities will increase ; and as a consequence of this wages will go up again. It costs a woman as much to live as a man, and the women dependent on their own earnings are demanding equal pay for equal work. The theatres have averted the threatened strike of the pantomimes, etc.. by granting the terms of the supers, and the reasonable demands of the army and navy stores salesmen and women have likewise been acknowledged. The large drapery stores have been the next to move, and there is an exposure of the pitiful salaries paid to both men and women on the "all found" meals, and "sleeping in" system. The evil will be righted. Even the school children are sharing in the general mental unrest, and school teachers are being much worried. Head masters attending the great educational congress in London say it is a sort of juvenile Bolshevism, and the mistresses say that girls are just the same, boys and girls from 10 to 12 being singularly unruly. This juvenile "hold up" of authority must be corrected, or the future men and women will be more undisciplined than those of to-day. But children are the mirrors of the atmosphere around them, and are reflecting the restlessness around. They seem to be carried away by excitement, and grudgingly obey. The need of women in the Law Courts to deal with child offenders is being generally recognised, and the recent appointment by the Lord Chancellor of an advisory committee seejns hopeful that that day is not far off. For the first time, this New Year has admitted a woman —at Stalybridge—to a place as chairman of a> police court, and she received the congratulations of her fellow-justices on the bench, who are convinced that the appointment of women to the magisterial ben ah is necessary, especially when dealmg with women and children. Granted that the women who undertake these responsible posts are women of knowledge of the lives of those whose sorrows and difficulties bring them to the court, and whose sympathies are as wide as their understanding, the women law-breakers will welcome them as their judges. Many non-party matters of social reform concern women very closely, and these they will press forward whatever Govern ment is in power. As the. law now stands, children have only one parent which -'s legally recognised, the father for the legitimate child, and the mother for the illegitimate, and many abuses of guardianship are enacted under that law. A number of women's societies are preparing a Bill to secure equal guardianship for father and mother, and much suffering will be saved, as well as the shirking of'moral responsibilities. Leap Year is already responsible for several serious proposals of marriage, and

a number "for fun." The funniest of these -was made bv an old lady to the newspaper man who went to interview her on her one hundred and sixth birthday! But a South African lieutenant, who dived off Hammersmith bridge to save a woman's life, and injured his head, and is in hospital, has received quite serious proposals. For women always love a hero —or his heroic deed. -One of the letters the lieutenant received reads : "I do not think any woman in the world is good enough for you. Some of my girl friends —and they are quite nice—would like to nurse you when convalescent. You are perhaps aware that this is Leap Year, and you know the privilege our sex may exercise. To put it frankly, I would like to go to South Africa. I hope you understand my meaning clearly." Of course no man of common sense would consent to such a proposal, and no girl of common sense would make it. For a man may be of great physical.courage, and yet be quite incapable of the foolhardiness of taking for a life-partner a. girl of such undisciplined impulse, however "nice" she may be. There have been far too many of these marriages of sentimental impulse during the war years, as the appalling divorce lists show. But of all the cases of matrimonial un- , happiness, the publication of which feeds 'the. universal perverted taste of to-day, the recital of "The Silent .Wife," which has been running in the Weekly Despatch jßerial-wise for some weeks, has drawn most . attention, both in England and in America also. For here we have the case of a once happy and good wife, so offending the husband (to whom she was devoted) by objecting to the acquaintance he made with an entirely unknown woman ■who, years after their marriage, thrust herself upon them at a seaside holiday vefeort. After a quarrel with the wife he ■separated from her in their own house, and, with the exception of one occasion on a night of an air-raid, and another when she was very ill, did not speak to her again, but gave all his orders through a series of notes. There were no other >Dccupants save the husband and wifa in ■ )his tomb-like house, and when after three years tho position became cruel beywftd rearing, and the wife sued for separation, Yhe court did not hold there was "deserVion." This is what the woman says :

"Defeat! . . . I can hardly realise it. I am still dumbfounded by the shock. Nevertheless, ■it is so . . . and here am I once more within the walls of the Silent Home that I • had hoped to leave for ever. Here am I sent back again by j the law's decree to that misery that, in I my ignorance, I had expected to escape I from so easily. Against my roseate morn- | ing anticipations the fact seems incredible. My petition for separation has been dismissed because the judge decided that I could not prove desertion oh the part oi my husband, since he inhabited the house and provided for its upkeep. No desertion! . . . When I remember the years that have passed without his speaking to me, that practically we never' see each other, that in everything but name we are strangers to one another! The old life begins anew. I wake and hear my husband moving about in the rooms below. If my door is open I can hear the sizzling of his breakfast cooking. Later on the street-door slams, and I know that he has gone to business. Then I descend, and the monotonous, hopeless day claims me once more for its v'ftim. I go into my husband's room, and on the table I find the small pile of coins he has left for the household purchases. . . . Everything is it has been for the past three years. Everything, I tremble to think, s it will be for the next three years. Nc! That' shall never be. I will refuse to accept a future of such composition. There, must be some way out for me, and that way t am determined to find!" Men of the law, ministers of religion, are reading this bitter revelation of the injustice of the English marriage law which condemns a faithful wife to such, a life as this. "Deserted" absolutely by the husband, and yet not counted in law deserted, because the man comes home to his room. The woman who has been brave enougn to draw public attention to her case will almost certainly, by so doing, help the cause of many other women. There will be results.