Will Women Rule In Britain?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 388, 23 June 1928, Page 20

Will Women Rule In Britain?

IF ever they all agree to vote the same way, the women will be able to place their sex in a big majority in the House of Commons. They will be able to choose the Government, and the men will be helpless . . —Miss Ellen Wilkinson, M.P.

No wonder thousands o£ dear old gentlemen in England are getting nightmares over the Flapper Vote. It was all very well to talk sorrowfully about the two million surplus women and the tragedy of the war, but now that there is a possibility of those two million members of the petticoated sex having the vote on the same equality as men all pity has vanished in a contemplation of the awful spectacle of the rising tide of feminism. k Yet, as Miss Wilkinson has pointed out In an illuminating article, these same dear old gentlemen have had to admit, however reluctantly, that the eight women In Parliament have not sent the country to perdition, nor has the enfranchisement of women over 30 resulted in chaos. Yet, of course, there is always this excuse of the diehards that these women over 30 had to have either husband or furniture as

a sort of guarantee of their intelligence to use the vote. Yet it must come as something of a shock to a community which has always adopted a lordly attitude toward its womenfolk, to find that, if they chose, women could turn the tables in no uncertain fashion. Maybe that is why the Fifty-fifty League was formed recently. The league stands for the emancipation of man from feminist domination, and has Issued a manifesto entitled "The Sex War.” This declares that if women are given votes on the same terms as men, and thus placed in the majority at the polls, they will he enabled to dictate the policy of the country, and must not expect to evade the consequences. The manifesto makes six demands for the day on which political power is transferred from men to women. The first two are: “Women shall be liable for military

service under exactly the same terms and conditions as men. “All sex privileges, concessions, and immunities l at present enjoyed by women shall be withdrawn.” But nobody can deny that English women, during the nine years they have enjoyed the franchise, have taken their recognised citizenship seriously. The women's vote has already made a tremendous difference in British public affairs, both municipal and State, and the fear that when independent working women obtain the franchise it will mean a horde of votes for Labour is probably upsetting the amiability of British men more than anything else. Yet women, who have fought as hard as English women have to secure the vote, are more likely to exercise an independent ballot than those who secure the franchise without much personal effort, let alone sacrifice and even death. Australian women, who have had the vote for over 25 years, have only succeeded in putting one woman into Parliament in New South Wales, and two in Western Australia. English women have accomplished much more in a shorter period. “Bread-and-butter questions, housing, public health, child welfare, education as such and not as a religious controversy; these are the big issues of politics to-day, rather than the more abstract questions of 25 years ago,” says Miss Wilkinson. “On these questions women are not in conflict with men, but there is a quiet insistence that home questions are very important and must be given consideration. The party managers, with their fingers on the pulse of electoral opinion, have had to recognise this current in public affairs.”

Women in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords should make politics much more interesting to the mass of British people, because women, burning with zeal to solve the human problems of the day, will bring the public and Parliament into far greater contact and understanding than any long-winded discussion of abstract subjects could possibly achieve. So the dear old gentlemen will still be allowed to read their newspapers in their clubs and smoke their pipes of contentment. Two million extra voting women, if they all smoke, might even bring down the price of tobacco.