PROHIBITION AND THE SEXES.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15203, 16 October 1919, Page 2

PROHIBITION AND THE SEXES.

An interesting return relative to the licensing poll taken last April has been presented to Parliament. The voting tit all the polling booths in every electorate is given, and tnese details are supplemented by various tables. These have been analysed by tlie Christchurch "Press," which makes the following observations :—ln one table is a return showing the number of men and women on the roil, and the number who voted in each electorate, with the percentages \rorkpd out in each case. There were H£L,773 men on the roll and 304,859 women, making a total of 626,632 electors. The total number of votes recorded (inciudihnr informal votes) was 483,034, cr nearly four-fifths (actually 77.08 per c-ent.) of the electors. One would expect from these figures that the number of men who actually voted would exceed by about 13.000 the number of women who voted. But actually.the excess of male votes was only 14. The voters were: Men, 241,524 ;' women, 241,510. This rather surprising result was due to the fact that the percentage of women electors who recorded their votes was materially larger than the percentage of men who recorded their 'votes. The percentages were: Women, 79.22 per cent.; men, 75.06 per cent. It would be very useful to have the polling so arranged that we could tefl exactly how many of each sex voted for Prohibition, but "it is admitted that a considerable majority of the women voted for Proliibition, and a considerable majority of i.he men for Continuance. The returns of the voting by the soldiers suggest that the majority "in each case is so high that the liquor question is almost one upon which the sexes are pretty solidly in opposition to each other. All kinds of explanations of the soldiers' votes have been put forward, but when allowance is made for every special factor that-may reasonably 'be icgarded as having entered into the voting of the soldiers, the significance of the soldiers',verdict as a male verdict remains. When we analyse the returns wo find that- it is hardly disputable that the strength of the Prohibition vote is the feminine support of the Prohibition idea. There was a majority in favour of Prohibition Tii 42 constituencies. In one of these the men and women voters were practically equal. In 16 the men voters out-num-bered the women; in 25 the .women voters were in the majority. Continuance secured a majority ot the votes in 34 districts, and in 26 of these the men voters outnumbered the women. We can put this in another way: there*were 33 electorates in each of which the women voters outnumbered the men. Of these 33 electorates 25 were in favour of Prohibition and only eight in favour of Continuance. If Prohibition were to come—we do not think, as a matter of fact, that it will come—-it would ■'..obviously come through, the" votes of the women, and there are grave disadvantages in. having one sex make fhe laws for the other sex.