Rangitikei Advocate. THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8763, 14 March 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

THE fate of the Woman's Suffrage Bill in tho House of Commons the other day was not unexpected, and the news that it was talked out will cause little surprise. No party is at all enthusiastic about the measure and as the Bill did not reach a division, members are free from the inconvenience of having to meet theia constituents with a definite vote recorded on either side. Even the fact that the Bill was talked out shows a certain advance in the direction of granting the suffrage since hitherto when similar motions have been proposed .they have been lost by large majorities. The fact seems 'to be that .most fair minded men consider that women have a just claim to the franchise, but they have no great desire to introduce an unknown factor into the 'electorate. No one nowaday, maintains that the brains of women are inferior to those of men, but many consider that their lack of experience in .life tends to make them more likely to be led astray by fanatics and .cranks. Tho stock argument put forward by such persons as Marie Oorelli and other onpoiients of women's suffrage, that if women 'get their rights tlioy will lose their privileges seems based on a low idea .of the position of the sex. Tho mere fact that women are allowed to go to the polling booth will not in any way lower the respect that all good men give to women as women. At the same time it cannot bo denied that tho granting of a position of equality to women will tend to reduce tho privileges of the woman who, .trading, so to speak, on the fact that she is a woman, expects to bo allowed to do her work less efficiently than if she wore a man. The loss of such a privilege as this could not be considered a disadvantage to tho sex. As far as tho franchise question goes, it is apparent that if the women of England desire votes they must educate public opinion on the subject, and we do not think that tho spectacle of female suffragists struggling and screaming in the arms of burly policemen is likely to produce any .converts to their cause.

THE Lord Mayor of Melbourne, ■who recently returned home from a visit to New. Zealand, has ventured on some criticisms which have aroused the greatest wrath among the journals in the larger centres. Our visitor told an Argus reporter that the mainstays of New Zealand were an active Tourist Department and borrowed money, but the head and front of his offending was contained in the following remarks;— *' I am afraid that the average New Zeni.ancler is small-minded and altogether too self-contained. So used are the New Zoalandors to hear themselves praised that they are in danger of becoming very much too

scif-cGUtained. Several.times during my visit to the colony I spoke publicly, and on nearly every occasion made a point of reminding them that there are countries in the world that have as much to support a contention iiin-t they have an exclusive hold upon the Creator. They did not like to hear mo say such things. The n.- js would not report me when I did "say them, but they never failed to report at length all the nice things I might say iiTbrief,' the "Lord*" MivyorT;hic.lcs that we arc suffering from J the affection known as swelled head. Everyone know J that the accusation is perfectly true, though hitherto we have tried to keep the knowledge of the fact within the family. A stranger has, however, arrived, and after a passing glance has recognised that the hats of New Zealand&rs are all too small for them. It is,of course, annoying that this infirmity should »bo published to the world, but we must just make the best of it, The only way to prevent, visitors making critical remarks about this country after they have left it would he to cause them jbefore landing to enter into a bond to refrain from anything but praise of the colony. There would be no means of enforcing the bond outside the colony, bat wo might fairly argue that anyone who failed to keep the bond after signing it was not a trustworthy witness. We doubt whether the present Government will take action in the matter, so we must for the present put up with the criticisms of Lord Mayors and other ungrateful tourists.

THE Davis-Swettenham affair led to an amusing incident in homo politics. The fact that a British colony received first aid for its wounded from ships of a foreign licet was promptly seized as a stick wherewith to thrash that clog, the Liberal Goyot;::hj,.; (writes Mr H. W. Lucy). In severaL newspapers of large circulation it was wept over as '' a humiliation' '—'' the result,'' one wrote, "of the policy of our present patriotic Government, which can but bring the blush of shame to all true Englishmen." Whilst the pack was in full cry it was suddenly called in by the whip. Someone remembered that the now system of concentrating the fleet, necessitating the withdrawal of cruisers from Jamaica and other colonics, was the work, -i»oi' or rocreauf Liberal Ministers, bat of their predecessors. More than two years ago, under the administration at the Admiralty of Lord Selborno—of course with the approval of Mr Balfour and his colleagues in Cabinet —the new system ; was approved. It came into full effect under Lord Cawdor, who succeeded the Earl of Selborno at the Admiralty, and was in fall swing a year before fcho Liberals came into office. In accordance with its regulations, when the earthquake burst forth, ill Briti.;'i ships nearest at hand wero ihe cruiser Brilliant at Bermuda, mil the Indofatigablo at Trinidad, aotii points within a thousand miles )f Jamaica, near enough to be of use m threatened outbreak of war, but not limbic enough for an earthquake, rtiiich, among other pleasantries, lostroys communication by breakup cables.