The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 1898.

Timaru Herald, Volume LX, Issue 2691, 30 April 1898, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 1898.

Our readers are aware that the National Council of the Women of New Zealand have been holding their annual session in Wellington, and that the authorities were gracious enough to allow them the use of " Bellamy's " for their meetings, after the Speaker of the Legislative Council had very properly declined to place the Council chamber at their disposal. If the Premier had been permitted to have his own way even the sacred precincts of the Council chamber would have been thrown open to these ladies for it was to him that the application for its use was first made. The chamber, however, is not under his control, and all that he could do was to forward the request to the Speaker, and ask for its favourable consideration. That he did, with the result above stated. The title assumed by the organisation, "the National Councilof the Women of New Zealand," is ambitious enough in all conscience, but is utterly inaccurate and misleading. The great mass of the women of New Zealand know nothing about this so-called Council and care just as little. The women of New Zealand have something better to do than to get together and talk such rubbish as the Council are annually responsible for, for undoubtedly a large proportion of the addresses and proposals which emanate from the members is unmitigated rubbish — either flat, stale, and unprofitable, or, almost invariably, when new, wildly impracticable and revolutionary. This year's annual meeting was productive of the usual "weak, washy, everlasting flood," and the result will be absolutely "nil." Yesterday, the Otago Daily Times devoted a leading article to the proceedings, and though it was quite evident that the writer entertained a very poor opinion of the wisdom which had been displayed, he nevertheless concluded with the words ; — " On the whole, the Council has discussed a wide variety of subjects, but whether they have cast any fresh light upon those complex problems which have so long vexed society is open to question. At any rate the Women's NationalOouncil is a factor in the political arena that has to be reckoned with ; and if Mr Seddon is in want of political pabulum wherewith to offer a sop, or a Series of sops, to his more ardent followers, he should be able to draw largely from the proceedings of the Women's National Council." No doubt the Council are " a factor in the political arena," but only to a very limited extent. They have no influence outside their own membership, and the members have no influence, politically speaking, beyond the numerical value of their own votes. We, are, indeed, inclined to go further, and to express the belief that the very fact of the Council having signified their approval of any particular course of action or of any particular view of a subject would be quite sufficient to cause multitudes of women to throw their weight into the other scale. In short

*~»g-«l-«i-^-«--«-etB-M---M--M-iM_li there is nothing national about the organisation, and it does not even represent a party. What we have already written is intended merely to lead up to what is to follow. A recent Wellington exchange says : — " The Women's Council sent a deputation to Mr Hall-Jones to-day with a view to getting the proceedings of the Council printed by the Government free of cost. "We shall have the private offices going for us,' remarked the Minister, ' Oh, bother the private offices,' retorted Mrs Williamson, the spokeswoman. ' What can you show in i the way of a precedent ?' 'We paid I for the last,' came the quick reply. • Oh, yes, I think I can manage it for you,' said the Minister, after a pause, and the deputation, having gained their point at the expense of the taxpayers, departed smilingly." This little story has all the appearance of being true, though wc cannot say positively that it is so. Assuming its truth, we would ask upon what grounds can the publication of the proceedings of the Council at the expense of the taxpayers be justified ? The organisation is a self-constituted, non-offi- ; cial, and wholly irresponsible body, ilt is in a very substantial sense a private concern. If the Government are to take the Women's Council under their wing and relieve them of what must be a very long printer's bill, equal consideration ought to be extended to the National Association, and in fact to any other social or political organistion in the colony. Nay more, the legally constituted local bodies —the municipalities, County Councils, Road Boards, Town Boards, Drainage Boards, etc., etc. — ought to have all their printing done at the expense of the general taxpayer. The order would be a pretty large one, and we do not see why the Benefit Societies should not be allowed to swell the list. The equitable claims of the local bodies and the Benefit Societies to free printing would in our estimation be much stronger than the claims of the Women's Council But the thing is not to be done. Each organisation must bear its own burden of expense ; and it is strange indeed that an exception should be made in favour of the National Council of the Women of New Zealand, who at their periodical meetings talk more nonsense than is talked in ten years by all the other organisations — political and non-political, official and nonofficial — put together.