COULD NOT BRING WIVES, BUT HAD LADY DELEGATES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18009, 20 November 1926, Page 1

COULD NOT BRING WIVES, BUT HAD LADY DELEGATES.

EMPIRE TOUR; SOME PERSONAL NOTES.

Lady Astor will pass down into history as the first woman member of the British House of Commons, and perhaps the first lady member of the Empire Parliamentary Association. It must have upset those in charge of the organisation of the tour of the delegates through Australia when thev ffund that one of the delegates was a fady.

The order had gone forth that members could not bring their wives. Then the youngest branch in the association sent a woman. Mrs E. Tawse Jollic. M.L.C., is a member of the Legislative Council of Southern Rhodesia. Southern Rhodesia, it will be remembered, was only granted self-government in September, 1923. For two years Parliament consisted of only one chamber, called the Legislative Assembly, with power to create a second chamber on somewhat the same lines as New Zealand. Mrs Tawse JolKe became the member for the Umtalie district.

In the descriptive booklet issued by the Commonwealth branch erf the E.P.A. Mrs Tawse Jollie is given the distinction of being a member of the council of the National League for opposing women suffrage, and of the executive committee of Women's Unionist Association and British Women s Emigration Association.