ADULT SUFFRAGE.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20495, 14 March 1932, Page 13

ADULT SUFFRAGE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PBESS. Sir,—Your correspondent, makes an apparently strong case against adult suffrage, and although, as my pen-name implies, I am merely

in the halfpenny class, I presume so tar as to say that the alternative he suggests is certainly not a logical one. To give greater voting power to the responsible, in this instance the financial, portion of the community would be a retrograde step, leading to a greater degree of dissatisfaction among the workers and further from that reconciliation and harmony so very necessary in this country. Most of your readers must know their history better than I do, and the events which led up to the French and Russian revolutions. Does "A.8." advocate the introduction of similar conditions here? Knowing the consequences, no man, especially a Christian, could seriously do so: Theory may be all right when facts are lacking; but in this case there are facts aplenty. First and always foremost, we must remember that a contented worker is an asset to any concern; and if it is true that the present system ot voting reduces the highest to the level of the lowest, we must bear in mind that it also raises the lowest to the height of Democracy, the only form .of government under which Britons could work in harmony. As the able member for this district, Mr Burnett, said in his election address here, "Trust the people." An admirable policy, if carried out. It may be quite true, as -*•**• points out. that the security offered for Government loans is the composite wealth of the community; but in the present depression, caused in part by those same loans, it is very evident that the workers were the first to suffer. How much more severely they would suffer if deprived of their voting power it is almost impossible to imagine.—Yours, etc.. BAWBEE. Mayfield, March 10th, 1932.