WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2080, 15 May 1907, Page 1

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE.

In the courso of tlio campaign aglinst women’s suffrage in Great Britain, some curious arguments have been advanced by the people who hold that tho right to guide the destinies of a country should bo conlined to its men. A writer in the London' Daily Express suggests, with apjiarent seriousness, .that women must *-not be given the franchise because the result'would be the political offacement of the then. -Ho states that in practically every constituency the female electors would outnumber the male electors, and that if the women were organised they would be able to return . their own nominees to the House of Commons. He recognises that the right to vote must logically be accompanied, as time goes on, by tho right to be elected, and from that jumps to a vision of a P arliament and a Government

composed entirely of women. “It ers of ourselves and our country ? Are re, who are men, prepared to advocate our own extinction as tlio rulers of ourselves an dour country? Are we prepared to be outvoted and outlegislated for by women, and in tho last resort to be governed and controlled by a Cabinet which would be plainly, and might be wholly, feminine in gender?” The obvious reply', of course, is that a Parliament composed entirely of women would be no more of an anomaly than a Parliament containing none but men, and flint there is no reason to believe that it would be less intelligent, more prejudiced, or less conscientious. It is quite obvious that, the women are no more likely O 'to see with one eye o.u political matters than are the men, and experience in New Zealand lias shown that the balance of parties will not lie disturbed to a very great extent by the admission of women to the franchise. The men of Great Britain, however, have indeed cause to blush if they are to accept the argument of the Daily Express contributor, and hold by might that which they cannot, claim as a right.