The Wanganui Chronicle TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1926. WOMEN POLICE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19584, 8 June 1926, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1926. WOMEN POLICE

The Women’s Congress which has been meeting at Geneva has discussed a number o£ important subjects and seems to have given particular attention to that o£ women police. It is reported that no fewer than six resolutions relating to women police were carried, the principal resolution insisting that women should have the same power as men and should wear uniform. The Congress has also expressed the opinion that women should specially be employed in preventative work among young people and should work in close co-operation with welfare organisations. In Great Britain and certain European countries policewomen are now a well established institution, and their good work is recognised, though their numbers are not yet very large. Great Britain, for instance, has 137 policewomen, while the number of policemen employed is nearly 54,000. The National Council of Women of Great Britain has been urging that the number of women employed to guard the public morals and welfare is quite inadequate, and a deputation from that body recently interviewed the Home Secretary on the subject. He admitted that, while there might never come a time when the numbers would be equal, it was desirable that the number of policewomen should be increased, for wherever they had been employed they had been an undoubted success. He promised to urge the local authorities to establish policewomen in the larger centres of population. It would, it seems to us, be a sorry day for the nation if it were found necessary to appoint anything like as many women as men to do police duty, but there can be no question but that good service among girls and women in the crowded cities of the Old Country can be done by women armed with the necessary authority. Some people in New Zealand claim that the time has come for the appointment of policewomen in this country. The Otago branch of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children at its annual meeting last week advanced a strong plea for such appointments. The loosening of home ties nowadays probably enables some young women to have more liberty than is good for them, and they would be all the better for the protection of well-qualig.ed policewomen. At any rate the question of the desirability of adding a new branch to the police service is worthy of discussion by the Legislature.