A FORECAST

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 44, 16 November 1920, Page 10

A FORECAST

♦ — THE HIDDEN HAND* OF WOMAN. Women speak at great length, but say nothing. Do we men really know what they iliink of us? They smilo and nro sympathetic when we air our theories; but I the real woman has no use for theories. In spite of her extraordinary lastc in. drees, she is eminently practical. And the curious thing is thai she does not arrive at her practical conclusions by logic, but by some stiango intuition. Frankly, I am afraid of women. Thoy are as detached 'from nrgument as nn eiperionced cat that, sitting in a placo of .safety, blinks her amusement at the ex. citcment of a dog. -What that dog says does not matter. He can't reach the cat, and she knows it. That is rather the attitude of woman to man. On matters of. principle wo may be as eloquent as a Demosthenes. Women listens, but rhetoric and logic do not move her. But should' the argument touch a practical matter she will,hit the bull's-eye with iior first instance. When women have become accustomed, lo the vote, and understand the practical power it gives them, they will ileal with public affairs as they now- doal with domestic—in a spirit of pitiless common sense. But I do not believo they will care very much about sitting in Parliament. That i.<? entirely a man's game, and is a. dreadful waste of timo. It is difficult to understand Tihy women are so practical. Tney say it is the result of having to make both ends meet in the homo. I don't believo il. For the average woman, however sensible she may be, spends much money on what a man considers nro' unesscntials—such as tho nppenranco of a houso to the enighbours, the dress of her children and of herself Porhansi the.so things are but a safetyvalve for feeling* i\ which she cannot inr dulge. She must be practical in her house-keeping, and in revenge 6he will wear a blouse which she cannot button without help. She has no use for verbal rhetorio, hut evtm in hor old age she will wear hats or bonnets bedizened with material rhetoric. At any rate alio is ft political force to reckon with. If wo are wise we will recognise that. Already she has changed tho character and tone, of our literature and newspapers. She is tho dictator of the stage and tho upholder of religion. We are woman-ridden, and soon wo shall he governed by womon when they think ■it worth whilo to organise themselves. Tho good old game of polities will be dead, for women, when they seriously tako. to politics, W'ill not play man's elaborate party see-saw, but will he eminently and ruthlessly practical.—John Carlylo, in the "Daily News."