MAIL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 512, 8 September 1902, Page 4

MAIL NEWS.

Pavia, July 5. Political interest centres in the discussion in tho Senate of the bill reducing compulsory military service to two instead of three years, which is the requirement of the present law. Minister of War Andre supported tho bill in a remarkablo speech in which ho said that two years is now sufficient to turn out capablo soldiers, oven in the artillery service, and that a democratic stato should not require a longer term of service from citizons in time of peace. Premier Combes said tho whole Cabinet indorsed the measure. Its opponents, he declared, are reactionaries, whoso chief argument is not that the soldier may become proficient in two years’ time, but that tho period is too short for him to imbibo tho proper military spirit. Senator Halgau in reply voiced tho real feat's of tho opponents of tho reduction by saying that while soldiers can bo fitted to fight foreign enemies in two years, unless thoy are kept long enough to imbibe tho true military contempt for everything unrelated to the army they cannot ho relied upon to repress disturbances at home. Another opponent of the bill cited recent instances where soldiers of threo years’ service refused to fire upon strikers.

Another reform measure which stands next upon the Republican programme is the abolition of military justice in time of peace. Premier Combes is of the opinion that special military courts tend to breed the idea that the Army and Navy Departments are superior to ordinary law. The common law, he said, if good enough for tho postmaster and the school teacher should also suffice for the soldier. London, July 20.

Although German poets vie with one another in extolling the “ eternal feminine ideal,” there is no country where the emancipation of women, which forms the great feature of modern life among ourselves and in the United States, has made so little progress. An amusing instance of this occurred some days ago in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, on an interpellation as to the right of women to take part in political meetings. The Minister of the Interior, with his hair on end, his face pale with emotion, and a voice quivering with excitement, replied that although it would not legally be pcrmissable to bar the door against a woman desirous of attending a political gathering, every possible means should lie taken to prevent her from speaking. In other words, lie declared, amid cheers from the greater part of tho House, that women like children, should be seen but not heard. Women phobia has always been a German characteristic. The admission of women into the civil service met with the most violent opposition in Germany long after female clerks and telegraphists had been successfully employed in England and in 1 ranee. The ] right of women to practise medicine was called in question only three years ago, when a committee of experts declared that the idea was too preposterous to be seriously discussed. In 1b99 a proposal to establish gymnasia for girls was likened by the Prussian Minister of IN orship " to a little spark which should be put out at once, lest it should break into a flame. ' But there are many signs that even the German woman is growing impatient of her part as upper housemaid, and in the consciousness of being a thinking entity, with a separate life of her own, demands to take her share in the national public* life.