VOTES FOR WOMEN

Evening Star, Issue 20053, 19 December 1928, Page 16

VOTES FOR WOMEN

NORTH IRELAND FRANCHISE 'Die Prime Minister of NotUwrn Ireland, Lord Craigavon, addressing a gathering of Orangemen at Droniorc recently, said the •Government proposed to introduce in the autumn session a Bill conferring the vole on women of twenty-one, and early next year, a Redistribution Bill abolishing Proportional Representation. , The first measure would place women on the same tooting as their sisters in Great Britain, and tbs second would apportion Ulster into single-member constituencies, metehig out even-handed justice to the Nationalists. Meanwhile all necessary steps were being taken to ensure that Ulster would bebefit to a like extent as Great Britain, and contemporaneously with her, in the maturing of Mr Churchill’s plans for tho amelioration of industrial and agricultural talcs. Referring to the party prospects, Lord Craigavon said « strong working majority was assured u Republicans and Nationalists only had to be lately into account, but certain misguided individuals, who by every decent instinct should be supporting them and the great cause they represented, flouted the associations and stood as socalled independents, thus, causing a split, within the ranks. _ There was in the Ulster House ot Commons a united political faction, totalling nineteen, made up of so-called .Independent Unionists. Republicans, Nationalists, and Socialists, combined against the Government. Through the machinations of the Northern Liberal Association the loyalists were so split es to allow even eight mor-e to be added to the nineteen. No loyalist Government could carry on, and the socalled Independent Unionist Liberals. Hepublicans, Nationalists, and Socialists would be in .power with a party of twenty-seven. If ever that faction gained control the Republicans Nationalists, and Socialists would predominate, and consequently claim the choice of offices, probably the Premiership, the Treasury, Education, and the R.U.C. and Special Constabulary.