A SCHEME FOR A WOMAN'S PARLIAMENT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 61, 18 April 1914, Page 7

A SCHEME FOR A WOMAN'S PARLIAMENT.

An English writer, Mr T. Watson Duncan, has made a serious effort in a paper entitled "A Possible Solution" to mould:; into' shape the notion of a woman or House of Bepresentatives. Mr Duncan's standpoint^■nearer the anti-suffragist than the suffragist. At the same time he does not attempt tq support the attitude' of the party in power, who meet the demand for representation by denial and opposition. His scheme he considers the one way to settle this vexed questiou and reconcile all parties. Briefly his plan is that there should be established what he terms a "Woman's Chamber." To this chamber, all the women in England, Scotland, and Wales (Ireland being excepted for special reasons)-, mentally capable, who had attained the age of 25* should send county representatives. The number of representatives not to be less than two, or exceeds five. The chamber would be established for a term of years, and could only be dissolved when the time •limit, was-.reached. The members would receive a salary—though the author does not fix the amount —and the country stands responsible for their election expenses. What is considered government would hardly be enacted within the chamber, the members of which are to. elect a "lady president, and a committee of 14 women, all of wiiom would retain office till the dissolution happened in ordinary course, by lapse of time.'' The duty of this committee would consist in arranging the business of the House and "decide as to the initiation of the Bills,.'? which are to be strictly limited to "questions affecting women and children." All questions in which men and women are equally affected are reserved for men alone. An abundance of talk, and a further tax on the country's financial resources would certainly be the only results of. the chamber thus deprived of any practical or effective power. Evidently the deviser .of this quaint scheme has not followed the work of women closely the last few years. He is convinced that men vote by parties, and women by groups. In countries where the suffrage has been sensibly granted, women are taking sides in strict accordance with the old party lines, and are mostly content to work

for the interests of their approvedpolitical party. Certainly a chamber moulded on the 1 above lines is hardly likely to satisfy the appetite of the Avoman political enthusiast or end the battle at present raging between the suffrage and antisuffrage forces.