Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1927. WOMEN’S FRANCHISE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 14 December 1927, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1927. WOMEN’S FRANCHISE.

A question which is causing' considerable discussion in England is that of extending the franchise to women of twenty-one; that is, on terms of complete equality to men. This is in pursuance of a promise by Mr Baldwin, whose chivalry, so a section of his _ followers declare, clouded his judgment. Since 1918 the status of woman has ben vastly improved in Britain. All the professions are open to her, even those such as marine engineering, for which her peculiar gifts might scarcely seem suited. She can sit on juries a concession the value of which, to the male mind, she exaggerated. In several denominations she can take holy orders. She can enter Parliament, and has wooed the electors with far greater success than her New Zealand sisters. But when it came to giving her the vote, a tradition-ridden Legislature baulked. The _ superstition that women were ‘‘inferior” to men had not yet been dissipated—and it still, apparently, lingers. Parliament, unable to bring itself to go the whole length, granted the franchise only to women who had attained the age of twentylive. The compromise was cowardly and quite illogical. Clearly, if woman is fit to have the franchise at all, she should have it on the same terms as man. There can be no possible warrant for the differential treatment. Is it suggested that a young graduate of Girton or Somerville possesses a less highly-developed political sense than a man of twenty-one who left school when lie was fourteen years old ? Indeed, it is common knowledge that the average woman of twenty-one is in not a few respects more "mature than a man of that age. Many women under twentyfive are wives and mothers, a circumstance which makes for responsibility. But many folk in Britain —Conservatives, Liberals, and Labourites alike —are greatly perturbed at the prospect of the extension of the franchise, and paint a doleful picture of the evils which will result therefrom. The decisive influence in the. Government of Britain will be wielded by a class whose conspicuous characteristics are levity and triviality. “Votes for flappers” is the sarcastic slogan, although there is no ground for supposing that British damsels are more frivolous than their masculine contemporaries. These alarms may strike New Zealanders as rather far-fetched.