The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29. THE WOMEN'S PARLIAMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 264, 29 March 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29. THE WOMEN'S PARLIAMENT.

Time was (and not so many years ago) when the woman who "took the platform" was regarded by her own sex and the other with a more or less tolerant amusement. There is still a section who view the militant work of women in social reform with affected amusement. There is, however, an incomparably larger section who sincerely admire the achievements of organised women in their strenuous campaign against social evils, in their perfectly just endeavor to obtain benevolent power, and for their daily fight in creating a stronger public opinion in antagonism to the laxities of life and those national sins which produce national atrophy. We are aware that before the advent of the Women's Christian Temperance Union perpetual fights were waged against those evils which this organisation still fights. The individual influence of women has been the inspiration of all time among all people. The passive woman reformer may in her own small circle achieve notable results by the mere exercise of her true instincts. An organisation such as the W.C.T.U., however, recognises the superior value of fighting in the open, the unifying of method, the adherence to a set course, and the influence of a corporation pledged to strive for a given goal. The annual address of the president of the W.C.T.U. will repay close study. Mrs. Cole touched on many matters of a high controversial nature—matters that have been bitterly debated time and time again, year after year. Every person has a right to his or her own opinion, and opinions alter. The alteration of opinion does not alter truth. Truths are often unpleasant, but they are eternal. It may occur to antagonists of the W.C.T.U. and sister organisations that it is wrong to blend politics with social reform, and, therefore, that the threat to vote only for those candidates for Parliamentary place who pledge themselves to support a bare majority "or some reduction in the majority now necessary to carry no-license" is a harsh one. It is, however, merely a matter of public opinion. If the influence of organised women is greater than that of the organisations opposed to their views, the public obviously believes reforms arc necessary, and that is all about it. The Acts of a Parliament are in obedience to the wishes of the people. It is suggested in the annual report that the W.C.T.U. has had some influence in obtaining a reform of the prison system. Although the reforms were the result of the adaptation of many existing methods, there is little doubt that organised women have by constant reference to the subject, and in advocacy of better methods, had some share in achieving results which one hopes may be satisfactory. A useful reference was made to the continued existence of the totalisator and the abolition of the bookmaker. Neither the one nor the other is dead, but the banishment of the bookmaker from public places (has certainly had the effect of swelling the totalisator takings. No argument that condones a gambling machine and attempts to annihilate its human rival can be sound. The report merely reiterates a truth, and truth does not stale with use. Year after year the W.C.T.U. have advocated stringent measures for the suppression of indecent publications, and even if the advocacy of the body did not induce the necessary legislation, it must have had some effect in moulding public, opinion. The alert politician necessarily carries his car close to

the ground, and shapes his actions to the expressed wishes of the people or sections of tlicm. The contention that military camps must necessarily be immoral is a little unhappy, and the suggestion contained in the paragraph under this head rather emphasises the belief that some people's ducks are swans. To continue being bucolic, there arc "goats" wherever there are "sheep." The strong will influence the weak. It is best to leave it to the boys. Soldiers in glass cases are poor defence. It is not "our boys" (the pure and moral) who need help. It is "the others who possibly may not be the best companions for them" who need the helping hand. Among the Acts referred to in the president's address was the Destitute Persons' Act, and there is no doubt at all in our mind that the women's organisations in New Zealand were responsible in a large measure for this Telief. Not only the W.C.T.U., but the Society for the Protection of Women and Children have fought valiantly and the aid of a sympathetic press—to obtain right of name for illegitimate children. Under the Act part of the intolerable handicap to an innocent child is removed. The life of a chance child is of as much importance to the State as the life of one born in. wedlock. No child is consulted about its birth. The origination of the idea that a loafer who refuses to maintain his family should be gaoled and made to support them by forced labor is in doubt, but it is known tkat the W.C.T.U. has year after year supported the principle which is now law. There can be no possible antagonism to so just a measure. Regarding the state of the "domestic" market, we confess to be a little uncertain as to the possible advantages of domestic science teaching advocated by the Union. Whether the future of the race will be benevolently affected by the introduction of cut-and-dried methods of domestic management few will be able to prophecy. The "white life for two" is a high ideal. Its achievement is a problem of the gravest difficulty. The material for the good women who seek social reforms i 3 in the cradle. It is difficult to change the fixed habits of the adult. It is easy to fix the habits of a child. We cannot change the habits of the adult population of New Zealand, except by force. We may make it impossible for them to do evil by removing the means, and this is the trend of most ntedern social reform. To eliminate the desire to do evil is a different matter, and the subject must be caught very young. CURRENT TBPICS. AGAIN THE SUFFRAGETTES. You can give a suffragette a census paper, hut you cannot make her fill it up, and the recently reported decision of the British suffragettes to "boycott" the census may have interesting effects. "We shall prove," said Mrs. Despard in the cour.se of an address last month, "whether there is a people or whether there can be a people without the women. We shall call upon women householders and women lodgers all over the country to refuse absolutely all information when the census-takers come round. Women, have been proud in the past to belong 1 to the nation; but we have been denied our citizenship. Is it not logical, then, that we should say that if we ore not to be regarded as citizens, we shall not register ourselves as citizens? That will be our protest, and it will prove an effective one." The authorities are not about to take a census of the people in order to "register citizens." They merely desire to know how many human beings exist in the British Isles, together with much information that has nothing whatever to do with votes or politics. Suffragettes who refuse to fill in census papers merely suggest that they were never born, do not exist, and therefore need not be mentioned. The suffragette who wishes the authorities to believe she does not exist, in order to help her sisters to achieve the suffrage, should also insist that her husband does not exist, and that her children (if she has any) are myths. The militant women seem to have found a weapon that can be wielded with an effect that cannot in any way I help women to get the Conciliation Bill passed. The threat that suffragettes will not pay taxes is a useful one; the suppo-J sition being that women are generally the individuals who "ante up" when the collector calls. The spectacle of the women of Britain insisting that their men belongings should cease paying taxes in order to coerce a Government into giving women a vote might form the subject of a most exhilarating Gilbertian satire. The idea that quite a number of voluble ladies in Britain really do not exist and never did, according to the census returns, which haven't been made, is extremely refreshing. I

AVALANCHES OF GOLD. The other day a youthful British poor married a nice girl. The peer possesses an estate which comprises nearly sixty thousand acres in one county, including a town or two, having business interests valued at many millions. Jn ewe the poor girl might not have sufficient to eat, her father gave her seventy-five thousand pounds as a wedding present, and several thousand folk poured siln-r and gold over the happy children. IV,? have just been wondering whether folk who have wallowed in wealth since cradle-time really appreciate cash a.s much as the person who has grubbed along in comparative poverty and sud-, denly stumbles on an unexpected legacy, or a mere unearned "fiver." A couple of young New Zealanders have lately become semi-millionaires by the death of an American relative, and consequently will have the "entre" to places previously undreamt of and the command of every luxury any person might desire. Nothing is truer than the epigram, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." The peer mentioned above need not necessarily have any greater qualifications than the man who polishes his "kit" for him (the peer i.s a junior lieutenant in the ''Blues") and nothing he has ever done or is likely to do could earn him the money he holds. It is just as much an accident that this nobleman is <wgeously rich as it is that the two young New Zealanders should stumble into five tons of sovereigns apiece. Very likely grosslv wealthy people have their troubles. 'There are all sorts of stories about the woes of the rich, and in a previous New Zealand case where a young man became suddenly entitled to throw up his thirty shillings a week for fifteen thousand a year, his life before he escaped to Britain was a tragedy. He had to encage a private secretary to deal with the bagsful of begging letters; all the business people offered him tremendous bargains in houses furniture, carriages and so on, and his j friends besieged him in order to con-j gratulate him and (if possible) to raise

a dividend. One can imagine the sorrow of a poor young fellow who is suddenly informed of the death of an aunt he never before heard of, and his horror at finding that he is sole legatee to property valued at a million pounds. The fact that millionaires cannot carry their coin with them over the Styx is one of the chief reasons why their legatees refuse to be cast down at the funeral notice. TOLL FOR THE BRAVE. Taranaki seethes with veterans whose honorable engagements are recorded on the medals they wear, and in a soldiers' province the record of a wariror's life is eagerly scanned. A week ago the "Last Post" was sounded over the grave of Thomas Maxwell Walsh, an old soldier who had a remarkable career, and who died at Newcastle, New South Wales. He was born in Ireland in 1814, .and at the age of twenty he "took I !i„> shilling" and was enrolled in the 87th Regiment, known as the "Faugh-a-Ballagh." After It" had served six years his parents purchased his discharge, in order to secure his help on their farm, but he was born to be a soldier, and in 1842, when he had had two years of farm life, he enlisted in the 18th Royal Irish Regiment. Soon he was on his way to India, and during the next twenty years he was employed almost incessantly in fighting. On the Afghan frontier he was one of the twenty-five of General Pollock's men who volunteered as a forlorn hope to clear a way through the Khyber Pass. The forlorn hope succeeded, and each of the gallant little band received a gold medal and clasp, which bore the one word, "Umbezela," the name of the fortress they relieved. This medal was Walsh's most cherished possession. After the Afghan war came the Crimea. Mr. Walsh was at Balaclava, and was present when Lord Cardigan received the order for the immortal charge. On the fall of Sebastopol he returned to England, but was soon sent off to India, and took part in the relief of Delhi. He hid seen more fighting than most men, but he had no desire to retire from militirv life, and. he remained in India until necessity arose for sending British troops to New Zealand. He was with the 70th Regiment in the Waikato war, taking part in a number of engagements, and lie was one of the force that made the famous assault on Gate Pa, near Tauranga. At the conclusion of the Maori war he went to Australia, and in 1800 he settled in Newcastle. Twenty years later, when he was seventy years of age, he volunteered for service with the New South Wales contingent in the Soudan, but was not accepted. He even regretted his inability to serve in the Boer war, though he found some consolation in the fact that one of his sons fought in South Africa.