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Hokitika Guardian, 7 April 1928, Page 2

An important step is being taken in regard to electoral progress at Home, where female franchise is being adopted in a wholesale fashion. The second reading of the Equal Franchise Bill, providing for what is popularly known as the Flapper Vote, has been carried by a huge majority, and the measure Is now practically certain to become law. The fact that only ten members out of a total of nearly 50!) ventured to oppose the Bill shows that the tide of events lias turned irresistibly in its favour, Mr Baldwin, with an immense majority of his own followers and the whole Labour and Liberal contingents behind him. has declared that the- Bill aims only at justice for women, and he refuses to admit iliat- there is any giotuid for apprehension and anxiety in this vast extension of the franchise. Sir \Y. Joynsou Hicks, in supporting the Bill, claimed thar it is a necessary and logical outcome of the long series of Reform Rills .since 1832. and lie reminded the- House Unit the gloomy prophecies which have always greeted each fresh proposal for an extension of voting power on democratic lines have never yet been justified. At I lie end of George Ill's resign, notes a contemporary. there were only 110.0(10

voters in a population of twenty-two millions. The Reform Bill of 1832, which brought the country close to revolution, added fewer than 500.000. After the extension of 1867-68 the electorate was only two and a-lialf millions. Just Indore the war. in the last year of which the frauKtii.se was greatly extended, the totniwas ciglil millions. If this Bill passes it will he Twenty-six millions. Yet it is legitimate to point out that there never has been in our political history so sudden and sweeping a readjustment of the balance of political power as this. To-day the male electors of Britain arc in a maority of 3.000.000. When the Bill is passed they will he in a minority of 2,000.000 and however sound and logical the princiolo of Hie Bill may lie, it is clearly impossible to predict or even to conjecture its ultimate political effects.