Correspondence.

White Ribbon, Volume 17, Issue 202, 18 April 1912, Page 16

Correspondence.

(The Editor does not hold herself resjwnsible for the opinions expressed by correspondents . ■

To the Editor of The White Ribbon. Madam, —It is with astonishment and regrot that I find tho President of the Women’s Christian Union condoning the criminal and senseless outrages of the British “ Militant Suffragettes.’’ I hope others, more aide and influential than myself, will raise a protest, otherwise let the Union drop the designation “Christian ” from its title. Mrs Cole’s defence amounts to the devil’s own plea—“ the end justifies the means.” I Believe that women’s enfranchisement has Been retarded rather than advanced By tlie excesses of its advocates. But let that pass, the criminality, the essential meanness of such acts as smashing the windows of unoffending tradesmen and igniting postal correspondence, remains the same. That women of good position and education should Be so Blind to the plainest distinctions Between riglit ami wrong as to Be guilty of such conduct—may I add, to defend it?— is truly deplorable.

But I trust that the moral sense of the great majority of women is too sound to permit them to endorse principles subversive of the very foundations of civilisation ; and thus, though disheartened, l remain, Yours Ac., Edith Hoim.kixson, “ A Suffragist.” Invercargill.