The Daily News. FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1911. WOMEN IN POLITICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 311, 26 May 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1911. WOMEN IN POLITICS.

I Our sisters and aunts in the Old Country continue to break furniture and to assault the police in an endeavor to ensure the privilege of a rote, and heroines are commoner than ever in the ranks of the suffragettes. It is curious that in countries where women have obtained the privilege of a vote they are not specially or aggressively militant, and that the splendid women's organisations that do exist do not owe their lives to universal suffrage. We must concede, of course, that if it is right for women in this country to have vetes it is equally right for women in a much more important country to have them. But the most careful study of the march of the suf- [ I fragcttes in Britain would seem to show I that no organised vigor is being expendj ed on good work, as a result of the fight for votes. The suffragettes, in short, seem to exist largely to obtain a doubtful privilege for themselves. The census enumerators in the Old Land are at present telling many stories of the absurd antics of suffragettes to resist being enumerated, heroines having hidden themselves in many fearsome places to escape. We have on previous occasions endeavored to show that the influence of women in politics—whether woman has, a vote or no—is the most powerful of all influences, because of its lack of militancy, its normality, and its naturalness. What so many people call a "revolt of women" is not a revolt at all. The mass of women remain in instinct, in influence and in intuition exactly as before. It is merely that a small proportion are abnormal. Mrs. Havelock Ellis has finely said that the struggle for the vote must lead to a realisation of duties founded on a level-headed facing of physiological realities. She states the truism that the normal woman is maternal. The possibility of becoming a legislator, a county councillor, a mayor, or even a Prime Minister cannot alter that fact. The woman with little knowledge and less wisdom denies this. She insists on trying to be a poor imitation of man, or else a mere neuter, possessing neither the virility of manhood nor the charm of womanhood. Sex hatred becomes almost as significant a characteristic of this type of the moment as ivory buttons and law-breaking. Mrs. Ellis shows that the militant woman of to-day is not the maternal woman, or she would not imitate the naughty boy who smashes things because he can't get what he is howling for. She arrests progress at a time when the maternal attitude in regard to the State is more necessary than at any time in its history. She is infinitely less purposeful in her masculine militancy than the woman who has not learnt to be unfemininc. Effeminacy in man and masculinity in woman is merely an eliminating process of nature, and has been common enough through all the generations. Says Mrs. Ellis: The one and only way to gain the vote is to educate women; not only to want it, but to realise its significance when won. The maternal woman realises not only its significance but also its insignificance. One would think, to hear some of our women talk, that the day the vote is won England will be a new Garden of Eden with Adam thrust outside to commune with the serpent as

companion. The vote will not do more for women, than it has done for men. For them it has been a small means to a possible end. Other and more potent factors arc needed in the development of men and women alike to give the vote all the possibilities that are claimed for it. The vote will not necessarily free us from petty aims and malicious actions, nor will it give us courage to progress until woman brings to its aid the tremendous maternal force within her. The true mother forgets herself in the general good. She is happy in giving, rarely in grasping. She never deals blows, but cures through firmness and tenderness. Through her very maternity she realises that new births do not come about in an hour, and that pain and struggle are inevitable in all great developments. She is "without haste and without rest." She smiles serenely and yet tolerantly at party strife and political jealousy. It is the maternal, then, that we want to bring into politics to clear it of its slavery to traditions and its attempts to formulate moral laws. The morality of the future is very largely in the hands of women, so that it will need all the educative discipline possible to fit her for her responsible work. The true mother, in a kindly spirit, will' put the dunce's cap on the heads of her hysterical daughters who mistake noise for freedom and sex hatred for emancipation. She will help to calm the ruffled tempers of her sons who, in the political arena, struggle to keep the floor entirely for themselves. The maternal woman's great desire is not so much to be in evidence as to be herself evidence that a nation inspired by women and governed by men will make cleaner and juster laws than one governed by women in defiance of men."