WOMEN LAW-MAKERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10683, 1 February 1913, Page 4

WOMEN LAW-MAKERS.

("The Sun.") ' Mrs Carrie Chapman C-r.tt, president ( of the International Suffrage Association, has been spending several weeks investigating conditions among the women of China. Writing' of her experiences in hunting for the recentlyelected women legislators of Canton, Mrs Catt says; " Wo chased up and down from north to south and east to west over the six square miles of Canton. Among thoce it ho told us that no women had ever voted for the members of the Canton Assembly nor been elected members wero one American, one Italian and throe Chinese physicians ; the principals of two important schools, several missionaries and numerous other men and women, all of whom we thought in . a position to know. " When at last we reached the gallery of tho hall in which the Assembly of the Canton province meets we found ourselves looking down on the very women whose very existence was unknown to some of the most intelligent men and women in the city. About half tho men members wore European clothes, while the others stuck to their native gowns, usually made of silk and so long that they have to hold them up when walking. , "The. women members, like all other 1 women in China, wore trousers. The women, with one exception, wore dressed in black, the one exception in dark blue. The men wore light colours. Each member had a fan, and the men used theirs with great diligence, while the women only did so occasionally. " Although several of these ten women legislators are married, all appear under their maiden names and as Miss. The reason for this peculiarity is because their husbands objected to being known as the mates of such progressive wives. Miss JWonsr Chin Cheon and Miss Lun Yin Wah are both wives of prominent officers. Miss Li Pui Lan and Miss Chong Han Kin are wives of rich merchants. Miss Man Cheang Fong, Miss Yik Yuet Yink and Miss Cheong Yuen are teachers in. the Government Normal School for Girls at Canton. Miss Ng Kwai Sheong is a teacher, and Miss Tang Ngai King has been a Government student iu Japan.

" At least tv.'o of them had little deformed feet. We noticed that these women did not ahvays vote the same «"aj. The tentli woman elected was quite a young girl. She resigned, and is now on her way to enter an American college." Thrt evening Mrs Catt wss invited to supper by a prominent official of Canton, and at his house she met four members of the Assembly, two men and two women. Though the women could speak only Chinese, Mrs Catt found them unusually intelligent and well informed. From them she learned thai: women voted for the provisional Assembly in 110 other province besides Canton, and that there are no women members in any other Assembly, nor in the National Council. Woman suffrage was not granted by the provisional constitutional convention, so only men r.re entitled to vote at tho coming election?;. Mrs Catt was told by Tse Ying Pjik. chairman of the Timor Mong Hni . in Canton, at whose table she met tho women members of the Assembly, that the Tung Mong Kui aimed at three great social • changes—the complete , annihilation of foot binding, tho" elimination of girl slavery, and the prohibition of opium smoking;. The first liacl been Accomplished, the other two were much harder problems to solve. At present Mrs Catt was. told, there were upwards of 200,000 slave girls in Canton alone.