As Others See Us.

White Ribbon, Volume 7, Issue 81, 1 February 1902, Page 7

As Others See Us.

In Mrs Ida Husted Harper’s Bullein of Dec. 2nd, 1901, issued by her as :hairman of the Press Committee of he International Council of Women, she devotes considerable space to commenting upon the information supplied

to her by the last report of our New Zealand National Council. “ The Report,” she says, “ contains some things which are very astonishing to those ol us who have believed that, with the granting of the full franchise to the women of New Zealand in 1893, their equality of rights in all matters was secured.” She quotes lengthily from Mrs Sievwright’s paper on the “ Disabilities of Women,” and draws attention to the papers on the “ Economic Independence of Married Women ” and on the “ Ethics of Wage Earning.” The resolutions urging that women shall occupy seats on all public bodies, and that all civil and political disabilities should be removed, were given in full, and her trenchant remarks on the position of our women are worthy of consideration, and should arouse many to vigorous action. “ We expect just such reports as the above from most countries,” says Mrs Harper, “where injustice to women is the rule, but they come with a shock from New Zealand, which, in many respects, and especially in its recognition of the rights of women, is generally supposed to represent unusual progress. But we cannot understand why the women, who have the Parliamentary suffrage, do not unite to defeat the members who are responsible for these wrongs. Most assuredly they have the ability to do so, for one seldom finds an abler set of papers than are found within the covers of this National Council Report. ’ Criticism like this from such a source should surely set us thinking afresh, ind should inspire us with a new determination to rise and use the rights of citizenship which we already possess to throw off the disabilities which crush and hamper us in attaining to many of our ideals as individuals and as members of the community. The text of the Disabilities Petition now in circulation in New Zealand states that in a

free community the laws should be in the direction of giving each of its members equality of opportunity ; that in the best interests of the State every human being should be free to enter upon such duties and honourable occupations as may be suited to his or her natural or acquired capacity ; that only by such freedom can the State obtain the fullest economic and social value of its citizens; that the legal restraints now placed upon the freedom of women exclusively imply a sense of inferiority, and are dishonouring to the womanhood of the community. Can any thoughtful woman gainsay these statements ? We think not. Then let us do all we can to obtain signatures to the petition, and when election time comes round let us see to it that the women of the colony are represented, and that their claims can no longer be set aside. Let us support good men and true, those who i>elieve that theii wives and daughters have to be considered as units of the State, in the same way that fathers and sons are being considered to-day.