The Daily News. FRIDAY, APRIL 7. COMMON SENSE AND THE CENSUS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 272, 7 April 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, APRIL 7. COMMON SENSE AND THE CENSUS.

The law-abiding house-father in New Zealand has by this time overcome his census paper. He has been able to decide whether .he is a male or a female, and what his age is. He has' found out from his wife when they were married, how old each of the children is, has stolen out to the fowl-perch and counted the eggproducers, tabulated the ducks and numbered the beehives. In search of information, the public servant always finds that his chief difficulty is in dealing with persons whose education has been a little neglected. Just as the casual visitor to a charitable institution objects to the forcible bath, so does the person not given to thought object to undergo examination as to his private affairs. We have been given to understand that King George—who has had a university education—did not object to give his name and his occupation, and it is hoped he carefully examined the farmyard to decide the number of the Royal poultry. In contrast to the law-abiding citizen of Few Zealand and to the King, the British suffragette has shown the stuff of which she is made by refusing to be at home during census night. Although her goal is to be a real citizenship, for the purposes of the census, she desired to be a myth. Therefore ignominy was heaped on her by the police, who raided her concerts, just as the Sydney police raided the Domain and other parks to register the derelicts who had no place of abode but who are still entitled to be considered alive within the meaning of the Census Act. The valiant suffragettes decided to be "not at home," and their chief ambition seemed to be to obtain martyrdom and imprisonment for disobeying the law. The suffragettes were circularised and informed that the maximum penalty for disobedience of the injunction to fill up the paper was £5, and they were asked if they were in a position to go to gaol to do so. The suffragettes were ordered to institute concerts away from home, and to tell the officials who might raid their concert halls that they were suffragist resisters. "Woman occupiers" who were not in a position to say they didn't exist for the purposes of the census, were asked to hire their houses to suffragists, who would perform the necessary evolutions of tying themselves to the furniture and screaming at the police. As far as may be gathered the police simply bunched them; counted heads, and entered them up as derelicts. The gentle suffragist struck a deadly blow at the Scriptural injunction, "Wives, be subject unto your husbands," by telling women who had husbands desiring to fill in census papers to give a "census party" to people the meek male did not know, so that they would be unable to describe them or mention their numbers in his .returns. This conjures up visions of poor little husbands being forcibly locked in the. cellar by surprise parties of suffragists, and the police effecting heroic rescues. The suffragist circular said that as a husband could not be forced to give any information on a subject of which he was ignorant, it would be unlikely that a penalty would be inflicted. Women who resided in lodgings were advised to clear out on census night. As there are probably upwards of a million women living in lodgings in London, if they obeyed the injunction. London would be a little topsyturvy, and the Thames embankment • would probably assume a more aristocratic aspect than usual. If large numbers of women vacated their homes on census night and stayed away, it would have been interesting to observe the infant nurseries of London. Quite a number of children would wonder why it was necessary for mother to clear out

and tie herself to the furniture in a distant cafe. The League recognised in February that there would not be enough census parties to accommodate all the women who desired to be away from home on census night, and pathetically decided that quite a number would have to walk about the streets all night in order to defy the law. February in London is not a pleasant .month, and the suffragettes who may have contracted pneumonia while sitting on doorsteps or sheltering on the Embankment will receive martyrs' crowns and spur their sisters to similar deeds of heroism. If the whole of the people of Britain were as enthusiastic over great questions as the suffragist women are about a particularly small one—the filling in of a pa I per—no one would ever need to blame John Bull for his supposed apathy. "No vote, no census," .said the suffragette, hoping thereby to soften the hard hearts of statesmen. In the meantime, the statesmen are engaged on other matters; the suffragettes can't refuse to fill in census papers for a few more years; and the police have bunched quite a lot of them together for census purposes as vagrants. No doubt the ladies who sat on doorsteps and went to all-night concerts feel that they won a great victory, and those who are lucky enough to go to gaol will help The Cause. One is entitled to believe that the present-day suffragette would be a little disappointed if she achieved the vote. All the delicious sensations of disobeying the law and fighting with the police, attacking Ministers with whips, padlocking themselves to immovables and going to gaol would be done away with. There would be nothing to fight for, and it is likely the fight is more interesting than the vote.