WOMEN IN PUBLIC LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 86, 8 October 1938, Page 19

WOMEN IN PUBLIC LIFE

SUGGESTIONS FOR MORE WORK

With the advent of women into public life, the nation might not unnaturally have expected some new contribution to its institutions, outlook, and laws, states "The Queen." And by 'new contr'bution" it might reasonably have understood not merely something additional or supplementary to what already existed, but something fresh, novel, innovatory Having built up a culture chiefly on masculine foundations, it might have seen, in the arrival of its women at the seat of power, a promise of a modification of this culture in the direction of essentially feminine virtues and gifts.

If to the atmosphere, tone, and character of the individual home, woman contributes a specifically feminine note, which no male could possibly provide unaided it is surely not fanciful to expect the same for the homeland, for the nation at large.

Have women done this so far? It might be argued that they have mot yet been sufficiently numerous m public life, or that their part in "* it has not yet been sufficiently protracted to effect any appreciable change. But is this really so? The majority of those who vote are women; we have had Bills sponsored by women, and we have actually had changes introduced into the law by women—Miss Ellen Wilkins's recent measure affecting the hire-purchase trade is. a* case in point. Without, however, wishing to detract from the merits of this measure, would anyone seriously maintain that it could only have been introduced by a woman? Might it not equally well have emanated from any male M.P. on either side of the House? Strange to say, the very peer who is to take charge of it in the House of Lords —Lord Amulree—apparently tried 30 years ago to get a similar Bill passed. WHERE WOMEN MIGHT STEP IN.

Not having any knowledge of Lord Amulree's proposals as they were embodied in his pre-war Hire Purchase Bill, it is not possible for me to say to what extent he anticipated Miss Wilkinson, if at all. But the fact that he contemplated such a measure seems to lend a colourable warrant to the claim I have made, that Miss Wilkinson's measure might quite well have come from a male M.P.

Surely, however, there must be departments of the nation's culture to which women in public life could add a purely feminine note? I shall try to find one or two.

Women are the jealous custodians and protectors of young life. From their record in all ages and all climes, and from the character of those of their sex in the lower animals, we know that they will unhesitatingly spring forward to intervene and protest, even at the risk of their own lives, when young life is imperilled.

Women were not in power when the poor little chimney sweeps were relieved of their cruel slavery. They had no voice in public affairs when the children in the mines and the factories were saved from their martyrdom, thanks to the efforts of excep-

tional men like the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury.

But women now have a voice in public life, and at this very moment young life is being imperilled as it has never been before. The wastage of child life in mines and factories has ceased; but, in another form, it is again to the fore. Five hundred thousand children under fifteen have been injured on the roads in the last twelve years! In the last ten years fifteen thousand children have been killed!

Here, then, is a department of our modern life in which the nation might reasonably expect women to take an energetic, a militant, even a violent part. A PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED. It is admittedly a difficult problem and where the solution lies—whether in a radical modification of our present arrangements of low pavements open to the road, or in a reduction of speed in towns, or in the more careful training or supervision of children —it is hard to say. But the difficulty should not prevent women from insisting on something being done. And if they are met by a loud non possumus, this should no more deter them than it deterred Lord Shaftesbury, "when a century ago the same

cry arose from the manufacturers and mine owners.

For it is not as if there were no regard for child life in England today. On the contrary, extremes of humanitarianism are daily being reached and over-reached. Indeed, to juch lengths do we go in the saving of young and infant life (of no matter what kind) that certain authorities have recently questioned the wisdom of our attitude in this respect. Both Dr. John Gifford and Sir George Newman, for instance, have declared that the unprecedented saving of infant life meant that "many of the weakest stamina and poorest breed are being saved." and Sir George Newman has added hat, :in view of this, "it is obvious we must anticipate a heavy burden of defective children in the schools of five years of age." But the practical sense of Women and their instinct in favour of physical excellence, mentioned in a previous article, ought to see the inconsistency here and correct it. Let them rationalise the present irrational humanitarianism which is beginning to place crippling burdens on the sound, and let them at the same time arrest the wastage of presumably healthy child life which is now taking place on the roads DELINQUENCY AND HOME LIFE. Another aspect of modern life, where women might certainly exercise their influence to some purpose, is in the matter of juvenile delinquency which, as we know, is iricreasing to an alarm I ing extent. Sir Herbert Samuel, who | first called the attention of the House to this question in April, 1932. ascribed it to "relaxation of family control." A report published in 1935 again reminded the public of the persistent increase in juvenile offenders; and more recently still Sir Samuel Hoare has made further allusions to the subject. At Hull, on October 23. 1937, he showed that, in spite of the recent decline in the number of boys aged eight to fourteen, there had been a spectacular increase in juvenile crime, the figures having risen by 2000 each year, until in 1935 the annual total exceeded 13.000.He also spoke of "a similar tendency for the ages fourteen to sixteen." Now we know that a plan is being ■worked out for a scientific investigation into this perplexing problem. But if. as many believe, the influence of home life is the determining factor in the forming of children and in preparing them for, their life ar adolescents and adults women surely must be able to put their finger on the present flaw in child training and education which is responsible for the recent increase in juveaile offenders.

What has happened to the home lifo of the nation? Is it a lack of discipline? Is it an excess of dramatic spectacles in the form of films—a feature of life unknown to the child of a former generation?

My own view is that the relaxation of discipline both in the home and at school is undoubtedly a major factor in causing the trouble, and I trace this relaxation of discipline chiefly tn two . influences—on the one hand, to the excessively sentimental attitude towards children which women appear to have acquired in the last two or three decades, and which may be coh-

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nected with the universal reduction in the size of. families; and, on the other, to a too servile acceptance of many of the extravagant and illfounded assumptions of the new psychology.

If, however, in public life, in their work as school governors, and advisers in maternity and infant welfare centres, and in their role of parents

in their homes, women would assume a njore balanced attitude towards children, and exercise their influence so as to improve the discipline of the young in all classes, T feel certain that we should speedily witness a marked improvement in the manners, habits, and pastimes pf the younger generation, and that this improvement would quickly be reflected in the statistics of juvenile delinquency.

There are other spheres of possible feminine influence—in the systematic spreading of sound notions on food values among the women of the masses, and in the cultivation of domestic arts among those young women workers who, having through their occupations been deprived of opportunities for learning or practising these arts at home, find themselves comparatively helpless when they are suddenly placed as wives and mothers hi charge of homes of their own.