NOTES AND COMMENTS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 27, 27 October 1942, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Parliament devoted little time or attention to the Bill which empowered women, by making application in writing, to be included in the list of jurors. Possibly many members were of the opinion that few, if any, women would desire to undertake that recurring and responsible civil duty, but there is the possibility that a few, holding very strong views on certain subjects, may 'choose to do so. The strength of the jury system is that the men selected constitute a representative cross-section of the community. That is one reason why the net is cast so wide. It reduces, if it does not altogether preclude, the possibility of a panel including partisans, or people interested in some particular measure of reform. It remains to be seen whether the inclusion of women who specially ask for permission to serve on juries does not tend to limit the applications to those who are so deeply concerned in certain matters that it would be difficult for them to shed their partisanship.

The impressions formed in Britain by Mrs. Roosevelt will be awaited with great interest. There have been visits by leaders of the Services, members of the Administration, delegations of members of Congress, the heads of the production and lease-lend boards, diplomats and those entrusted with special missions by the President. Their impressions, published from time to time, have been interesting, if now tending to become a little stereotyped, but Mrs. Roosevelt will see with an American woman’s eyes the blitzed areas, the ruined homes, the extent and nature of the test to which the civil population has been subjected; and she is a most capable observer. Her views on. many domestic questions have commanded widespread attention in the United States, and she is a distinct personality in her own fight, as it were, and. not simply because she is the wife of the President. What Mrs. Roosevelt will have to say of women’s wartime activities in Britain will interest a much wider circle than American women.