Miscellaneous

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 186, 30 August 1909, Page 4

Miscellaneous

VOTES FOR WOMEN

An International Conference of Women Suffragists was held in London recently at which delegates were present from 21 different countries, including Australia and New Zealand. It was interesting to compare the speeches of the colonial delegates with those made by representatives of countries like Russia, where women have a very uphill struggle before them. Mrs Donohoe of Victoria,and Mrs May of New Zealand, were able to give cheerful and inspiring accounts of the working of women's suffrage at the Antipodes. The speech of Madame Mirovitch, the Russian delegate, was in painful contrast. A great victory was gained, she said, when the Russian universities were thrown open to women in 1906. But the reactionaries were in power. It was only under the greatest pressure, especially from the university professors, that the present Minister of Education had permitted the women students of H*o6 to finish their studies. Harsh regulations were being made against women on all sides. The women in the postal and telegraph service had been forbidden to marry men outside their own department. It was alleged that they might inforii their husbands of the contents of telegrams —an excuse that came badly from a Government that freely opened private letters. Schoolmistresses were not to be admitted to schools in which unmarried schoolmasters might be serving. Peasant women were forbidden to be present at the rural councils. In short, the reactionaries had recognised that women were their natural enemies. When under great pressure permission was given for the recent Women's Congress in Petersburg, the programme was curtailed; men members were excluded; all criticism of the Government was of course, forbidden. The ball was surrounded by police as if the women were criminals. A police officer was always present, and had the power to stop any speaker. But, in spite of all this, th»* women had been able to drawsuch a picture of the fearful industrial and political condition in which the mass of Russian women were living, that it became the main topic in conversation and the Press.

One of the most interesting features of the Congress was a pageant in the streets of London, representing the varied activities of modern women. A thousand women took part in the march and nmongU the professions represented, were fanners, sculptors, public :\» nl;< r.% rrtniUsry ins'pvctors, jewellers', house decorators, and poultry farmers. The most picturesque group was that of the lady doctors, in their gowns of sc.irK.-t, white and biue. The laundresses displayed the motto "Serve and Ob<*y," and the badge of the sanitary inspectors was a snake marked with the label H2U. The journalists had as their emblem a while pigeon, and the poultry farmers

a row of eggs. In the Albert Hall which wus gaily decorated, the representatives of the trades filled the entire arena.