THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners’ Advocate. FRIDAY, 24th NOVEMBER, 1911. CURRENT TOPICS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 22, Issue 91, 24 November 1911, Page 4

THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners’ Advocate. FRIDAY, 24th NOVEMBER, 1911. CURRENT TOPICS.

All nations are* preparing for war, weighing themselves down under enormous burdens of armaments, yet all of them dread war aiid stand in fear of it, and none more tha n Germany, What would war mean for the Fatherland ? This is what Herr JBebel, the orator of the German Socialist?, has to say in reply to that question : —“There would be a revolution in all social relationships. Millions of w 'orkmen would be called away from tlheir families, who would have nothing; rto eat and to live upon. Hundreds of. thousands of small manufactures would be rendered bankrupt. Stocks am i shares would fall, and thousands of families in oomfortable circumstanc «s would be reduced to beggars. Tt »e enormous export trade with the o atside world would be interrupted, inn omerable factories and industrial unde would stand still. The imj tort of food stuffs would cease complete |y, prices would reach height that wr juald mean famine. The masses tlould ery for work and bread, and no one co had them work and bread outside the few industries interested in w «*.” In conclusion, Herr Bebel addres set ian eloquent warning to those who wt sre prepared lightheartedly to plunge t heir countrymen into the horrors and . m icertamties of modern war. “Tljere are many,” he said, “ who talk„ lig ;htly jof a war with France, ar id we think we should soon finish it. Cap able military judges have, however, assured me that we should certainl] ' not find Faanee so easy to. deal witl i to-day as in 1870. Our history booi ks tell us not a word about the misery, , the want, and the lack of work dura. ng the terrible winter of 1870-71. Yeij what we should have to face in a.new wi ir would be infinitely greater and income )arably more terrible than the experierra e of 1870.”

Now that the. eleoti ions are so close at hand it is o£ intern st to note (hat on the last occasion,.® >f 537,003 persons on the rolls, 428 ; ,® 48 only exercised their right to votev- This was 79.82 per cent, of the totbi ’■ number enrolled, a considers ,bly tom er proportion of voters tbai i at tibe previous election, when 83.25, per c ent of those on the rolls voted , Of tlie 204,078 men on the rolls, 238,634; list’d their votes, while of t be 242,9 80 w omen enrolled only 190,J .14 went to tho poll. This meant tb at the pi mporticn of male voters to those eligible wa& 1 81,11 per cent., at j against 8 '4.07 per' cent, in 1905, wl jile only 78. i ?6 of the women on the rolls voted, oomparea with 82.28 f tt the previoi election* In giving these figures the Registrar-

General remarked that there was no J evidence of a greater willingness on the part of females to go to the poll. In this connection it is worthy of note that the exercise of their voting power by women has for some time past been much less thorough than in the case of men, though at first the right was taken advantage of very freely. In the following table comparison is made between the proportions of male and female voters to the number of each sex on the rolls at each general election subsequent to the granting of the franchise to women: —

Thus it will be seen that, whereas at their first opportunity to exercise their vote the women electors went to the polls in much greater force than the men, on the next occasion their interest had waned very considerably, while at all subsequent elections they have evidenced leas interest than has been displayed by the male voters. In this, it must be understood, com« parison is not being made between the actual number of male and female voters, but between the proportion of each sex who went to the polls to the total number of each who were entitled to vote. / How the number of those who actually voted has varied is shown in the next table: —

Election Year. Males. > Females. 1893 .... 85.18 1896 .... 76.44 1899 .... 76.70 1902 ... .... 78.44> 74.62 1905 ... 82.23 1908 .. 78.26

Election Year. Males. Females. 1893 .... .. 129,792 90,290 1896 .... .. 149,471 108,783 1899 .... .. 159,780 119,550 1902 .... .. 180,294 138,565 1905 .... .. 221,611 175,046 190,114 1908 .... .. 238,534