WOMEN AND PARLIAMENT

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 22, 21 October 1919, Page 9

WOMEN AND PARLIAMENT

(To the Editor.)

Gir.-,Some few days ago I read in Thf. Dominion* a paragraph stating thnt -a League of Youth had been formed at Home, with the idea that "as youth had fought an evil order based on. militarism that had wasted human life and human .nower, so youth has come back asking -if their energy, courage, and endurance are to go for nothing in tho resettlement of tho world." The manifesto eoes on to say: "The young men and women who fought, the war must be given a hand in governing, the Empire which thev have saved. , Entrenched privilege and customary authority aro too often in the way ot progress. . . ." The truth of the latter part"' of this manifesto, which has been signed by names well known all over the Empire, has been exemplified in the attitude of the Legislative Chamber of this country to the Bill which proposes to givo women the right to sit in both Houses of Parliament. While the war was on, and there was work for us to do we were told how splcndio we were, how full of ability, etc., etc. In fact, we saved the Empire! Now, when tun, point is reached when the men in authority are asked to nut their admiration of our ability and. self-sacrifieo into . acts, wn have this pitiable exhibition enacted in thp Council Chamber, an exhibition of crusted prejudice which alone should sign its death warrant. Nor can we acauit the other Chamber of insincerity, for as Miss Melville, in Auckland, uointed out the other flay, it was known there wpuld bo opposition, nnd the Bill could surelv have been framed in such a manner that it could not be objected to by the Council on tho pica of privilege. Tito same offices', as Miss Melville pointed out, drafts legislation' for both Houses, under the instruction of the Government, and one would suppose that thin officer, also' the Government, must have been aware that objections to. the Bill in its present form could be raised, especially as the same question of privilege on practically the same grounos was raised by members of the Upper House in 1914, when the Legislative Council Amendment Bill was before Parliament. At onv rate, here we have the picture of crusted age impervious to tho new thdught, the new order that is springing Tin everywhere in the world to-day, hug ging :tself closely in the Council Chamber. and snarling at woman as she knocks at the dcor. "Privileie! Privilege I" "A breach of privilege!" it mutters with palsied head, and strives to barricade iiself in more closely, dreaming—alas! poor Age—that it can s'em the march of democracy. Never bpforp ; ias it been made so dear that it is .onng blooo' that is wanted in both •louses of Legislature, young blood ct »hn head of the offiecs of SHe, young ond eazer minds free from the prejudices and rigidity of age. Yi'e women have suffered too much from these in this country, and it is time, we worked • : <ir change. T would suggest that at ie. next elections no woman should ;ito for anv man over fifty. By the lime that age is reached most men have tecome encrusted wiHi prejudice, have too great a respect for veiled authority, nnd their mimls are no longer oprn to the newer forces of thought that are for ever sweeping the win-b!.—T am, etc., THE NEW AGE.