AN EQUALITY OF THE SEXES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 22, 25 September 1885, Page 15

AN EQUALITY OF THE SEXES.

E women of Dunedin have had the advantage this week of hearing the opinions of the men of the city pretty plainly expressed concerning them. And the public generally has had the advantage of learning what the experience among the fair sex of the members of the Dunedin Parlia-

mentary Union must have been . The experience in question, moreover, appears to have been pretty evenly balanced, for the majority by which the motion in favour of women-electors was carried amounted to one only.

We need hardly say that our sympathies are with the minority, though not, perhaps, because we agree with many of the arguments employed by those of them who spoke on the subject. We hold by the traditions of the past ar.d believe that any departure from the place occupied by women in those traditions must be attended with evil to society* The field of womanly duty is already sufficiently large, and the path of the womanly life is wide enough to afford room for all that is required, without interfering with those pursuits which more properly belong to tu«?n. It is not desi able that the masculine element should be introduced into the woman's nature and if the woman's intellect is also strong and keen let it, at Last, remain refined, and possessed of a refining power. It would, meanwhile, be but a scurvy compliment to the women of the Colony to assert that, were they possessed of the franchise, they might fill the Parliament House at Wellington with as able a body of representatives as those who have been sent there by the men. The experiences of the session which has just closed, in fact, have forced the conviction upon us that a more feeble or useless body of members could not be chosen by any constituents of either sex, and that the motives of electors generally may be taken as anything rathor than the sincere desire to see the affairs of the country properly managed . The session, in the dire necesbity of the country, has been absolutely barren of wise or helpiul measures, and Members return to their homes leaving U9 without a hope for the amelioration of the wretched condition of things that has now for some time prevailed, and which bids fair to increase. No measures were taken to remove or relieve the depression that continues and threatens to grow deeper, before which, moreover, multitudes of respectable and efficient colonists are leaving the country, and other multitudes, less fortunate since they are unable to find the means of removal, are reduced to pauperism and suffer from a poverty as grinding as that to be found in the European cities. The condition of the Colony, considering its resources, is one most disgraceful to the Legislature, and reflects

especially upon the weak and vacillating Ministry whose paramount object has evidently been the tenure of office at all costs.

If, then, we are opposed to conferring the franchise upon the women of the Colony, it is certainly not because we entertain any fears that their vote might spoil the character of our legislative Assembly. — Hon. Members, as they have displayed themselves before us, have evidently, with very few exceptions, been returned by voters who took anything but a broad or patriotic view of the task they were engaged in — and it might seem that no woman, let her dependence or simplicity be what it might, could have been more influenced in giving her vote in the wrong direction, than were a great majority of the men who now exercise the electors' part, — in fact had our present Parliament, in the past session, not only been elected by women, but actually composed of them, it is to be doubted if its Members could have returned from Wellington with a more scandalous record of wasted time and worthless measures. Had our Ministry also, indeed, been composed of hon. ladies — all of them, as one member of the Dunedin Union proposed with respect to the female voters, over 35 years of age — and possessed of all the qualities usually attributed to the old woman, it may be doubted as to whether they would have acquitted themselves less brilliantly. — Although, perhaps, the honourable sisterhood would have been found less accommodating in their attitude towards the House. — And such is the Cabinet over which genius presides — and such are the hopes of the country. No womanish interference could make the situation worse.