The Procession.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 44, 12 January 1912, Page 7

The Procession.

By aerw glover

The housewife has just n<»t her children off to .-..'li.i.ii. and is now ill u[> the house. She takes no pride ii pleasure iti ln'i work, and this is .■:< -vil v inidi'i'siihid when you observe li'-r dismal and unlovely surrouudiiies. Wli.-it little I'm nil lire then) is is uely and inartistic. The house is wailed in by other houses. Only tba front room th- Mill, and beiti;; ii devoted mother, the holisewiie reserves th.ii room i<\r the children's bedroom. She and h'M husband .sleep in a room sn d:i!ti;> thai the chillies up stick- tv the wail. Her husband is consumptive, Ten years aen he was stroii.;' and lie:i!t!iy, hut iiisnlhcieiii food, had and c.instant worry about cmplo.vilie.nt hue done their wurk. The hoiise'vilc iinishes her work, Her bead ache.- bei-aits" she iiad lain awake last m'eht worry! lie; over the children needing new fi.ii»i<. She .sits down and rests her aching head -in tin- I able. She thinks ol her w.-ldine day - l.'f year* iie.i lli.it day. How happy the.v w<'V--\ What e.i id comrade-, they had always been. The Im'elieht thai sh.me in his eves thai, 'l.iy had always shone I'.ir her. lie had always worked hard. Tltev had always lieeu eciunmi'-al aid temperate. She could it'll see lif»\v tln y we.ie t" blame, and it seemed monstrous t.i her thai they should stiller so. "lii.i [iinir woman tried tn think things nut, to ee-t at the cause of ail the trouble, but her head ached so, .she eayc it up in fie.sp.iii-. Cleat tear* splashed <n! the deal table. The cat spraue n. the table and patted her cheek, as it the creatine desired to express in .sympathy. The woman's weary <■>••'< rested on a picture Lick, d to the diiii'.v kitchen wall. It repre-sem-ed a drowuii.e in-in to grasp a tope which was thrown tn him by the bystanders. The rhouehi. came to her that. sh» and the ntnnv-;lin£ |>»»r around her were always in a sea of worry and anxiety, and they could not si—, iiuv rope. She thnu.eht ul' an article she had iieeu read in-; about a procession in Kneland. Ret ween sixty and seventy thousand women who hail united' in an eil'nrr to their tn vote, walked in the procession, and becan.se I'urposo ei'iir commands re-ApiM-t as li.-iiie; something rieht out of the common in a world of drift ajid muddle, e.-nilemeii in broadcloth and eeiitlenieti iii th*> laborers' siarb raised, their hats in then, as they passed. Tht> irnm.iiM eves are heavy I ruin waul of sleep. The cat. curled iip on the table, is pnrp'iie ill ii'T ear. (Gradually tho noise oi : ill-" street recedes. There is i sensation ol' floating in spuco. For a timo ail -'..u-es anri |Worries are toryjotloti. and a L»i''\it love and a cireafc pity iak-> their place. Spurred on by pain, the woman bad Sound a way tUnmeU a t'oi; of muddled thought and gained a. place in the ranks of thosfl who ''net out of themselves to tililik."

And now liefnie her troops a mournful p'O'-essi hi. They were not fi-dit-itia; to; the franchise, as were ihe women nf whom she had beou thinkirit;. These women already |x>sse*-:cd the to vote. No si.-t purpose Have die!<it.v t'l their deni-anour or fit t!«e ti7e ~{ ♦uitiiu-iiasiu in their eyes. They drifted alou.j; in the rut out for then, by a nioiistc! named Rrofit-niak-inj,. fliev had the vole, but, liko their f.itben and brothers, they did not iciiO','/ ieiw in us" it, so they o;av« it 1.. it'.iM-ish ti-.e monster. As election tine* drew near, the monster would send ids well-iVd emissary to explain tn t'ueut how. if In- were ■■.•turned to I'liiliiiiiiemt. he would cut a littlf) bit of the <l:iws of the lliollsiet And Ihe peophi believed him. l'Vw leave the rut ot custom lo flinib the heiehts so that, they 'o!t!d survey the land and select for themselves a less monotonous existence. -Th," rocky path they travorse is strewr with iiieir bodies and the- bodies of htisbatids aiul children who need not have died had human life and comfort and welfare been put }>flloi» proiit-ni!ikin.:j;. Labor is wasted in rriininal folly in thn niakine; 0 f couuii-.dities t'» tickle the palates and defora'-.e the bodies of a parasitical class. in tho Wellington "Evenina; Rust r-'Wiitly an account is given of the la.t'\st sensation in Bond Street — the exhibition of a pair of siioos that woro priced at £o()') and took six months to make; and this is only one of many instances. Labor is wasted whenever the immsUu- of profit-making has no it so for him., and labor cannot eet out of the nit .bocause he has no tools ami so is more heiplfss than any savanv In cfiuntless other ways is wealth wasted, that wealth which would smooth the path, which would mala th» waysiJo of' hfo bloom and sparkio with a myriad of varied iiiivM-ests; chat woalth that U no turrlly

nooded to safeguard tho lives and welfare o| our young gills, the mothers of tile I'utlll-e.

Spring casts her mantle' over tho land. Reach trees glow in pink radiance All the various spring flowers bloom in neat rows. Alan cares for them all. He prunes and transplants. Hut the human Mowers in their springtime wither unnoticed by his side as lie jogs alone; in the profit-making rut. Watch the girls emerging from tho various workrooms. Note bow few there are upon whose checks aro the poach bloom of health. The miu-e. weakly ones plod along from day to day in a dull trance of weariness, and many, when they arrive home at night, thoroughly exhausted, are expected to perform some household work or make. ■ •lot lies for younger members of the family. And as fragile girlhood is n"gleetcd n\\i\ crushed, so is the foundation laid for a future generation lickiue in energy and vitality.

Note that woman with the gray hair a:d d'vply-liiied lace. She is but '.VI v-ars of aue. The woman besides hell's her mother. The mother is loudly asserting that the women of to-day are cv what they were in her day. Quito so. good madam. You inherited a

■■nod constitution that enabled you to h'-ar the woman's burden. Mat economic pressure compelled you to work at a time when Nature demands that the prospective mother shall rest, and si yon drew on the Hank of Vitality; yon took from the unborn that which you can never repay.

.Vote that woman in black. She is bit "J:*, and is widowed—widowed beciuso human life is cheap and it did not pay her husband's employer to provide' protective .appliances. She had to provide for her baby, and so was forced to entrust him to the care of another person and one day he pulled a, vessel of boiling water over himself. And the upholders of the present system tramp over their graves and the aching hearts of the bereaved in all similar cases when they go to the [lolling booth.

Observe that woman with three small children. Her husband is a convict, with a life sentence. He was out of work and became despondent and took to drink. Under the influence of alcoholism tho crime was committed, but unemployment was the veal cause.

Another woman passes and upon her fa-ce is the brand of suffering. Her husband's wages barely .sufficed to provide the barest necessaries of life for their family, and the time came when tho prospective mother debated with herself as to what she should do—to bring another being into the world and to be forced to stint the oilier children i!> Nature and break tho law of the land. And she chose the latter alternative and now she is a pain-wracked chronic invalid.

There passes a woman who had an invalid mother to support, and she married for a home, because the struggle for existence was too much for her. She used to be a charming girl with vivid imaginative powers, and wido sympathy, 'out now the effects of her unholy bondage have turned the dainty vessel of porcelain into common delf.

There passes the wife of a small farmer. For ten years they have been fighting the wilderness with primitive tools and little capital. Tho woman did a man's work, besides her domestic duties. Her three children were horn dead. Her only recreation is a visit to their graves in the little rough bush cemetery on Sunday afternoons.

But why enumerate further the various tragedies that take place, that are always taking place in the lives of women. When we ''get outside of ourselves to think" very little reflection and observation will convince us that the cause of almost all the sorrows that darken life would be removed altogether and all burdens would be immeasurably lightened by the public ownership" of the means of life, which is Socialism. The power to protect the mother and the child is only gained by developing the associative spirit. And everywhere, in every part of the world where the same economic forces are at work, women., through suffering, are beginning to realise that they must get out of the rut and help to change existing conditions, and so for every pen that writes and every tongue that npoaU.3, myriads of women are thinking the same thoughts and cherishing hopes of a brighter clay for their little ones.

A knock at the door aroused the sleeper. She opened the door and took a leaflet from a man who was canvassing for the Socialist candidate. your sympathy is with all those iwho Iwvo a right to live and to live in comfort because they are workers, and agiinat these who want to live on them, then you will read that," said tlw man,-

Tbo worHHo fviad tho liwiflH, and tbeo with a. Hiuito at hoc own whimsical aotion sho cut out tho word "Socialism" and gum mod it on tin* ropo in th« picfctno as * lain 1 !. "I did not know what Socialism was Iwloro," dlift said. "1 alwayn thought it wks a kind of religion."