WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 509, 12 November 1928, Page 8

WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT

FIVE women candidates are soliciting the favour of the electors at Wednesday’s polls, and it will be interesting to watch if a dawning political chivalry will permit New Zealand to send one, two, three or more of them to the House. The trend in progressive countries elsewhere is to have the women of the land directly represented in the national assemblies: and there is perhaps occasion for regret in the fact that New Zealand, though the first country to give women the free suffrage, and the first country to admit women to the degrees of its University, has not yet tried the experiment of sending a woman to Parliament. There has been evidence during the campaign that a number of electors are still troubled by the outworn shibboleth that woman’s place is in the home. This should not be permitted to interfere with their discrimination. The women candidates should bd judged on their political merits, and sentiment or prejudice should be discarded when the judgment is being formed. Should women be returned to the House, some minor adjustments in practice might be necessary. The ladies could scarcely expect to have tlie freedom of the members’ chib, and special retiring rooms would have to be provided for them. To raise their comforts to the standard of those provided for the men, who have billiards tables and a tennis court at their disposal, a bridge table, mah jong set and croquet lawn would really be necessary. The women members, however, would not be likely to insist on stich refinements. Their presence in the House itself might occasionally embarrass a member. Sir Joseph Ward, for instance, said only last session that he could not discuss the Mental Defectives Bill freely because there were ladies in the gallery; which suggests that, bold as Sir Joseph may be with his proposals to borrow money, he has his modest moments. Then again, if there were women in Parliament, the jovial sounds that sometimes issue from the division lobbies might be more moderate in their tone.