The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27. "THE HAND THAT ROCKS."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 153, 27 December 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27. "THE HAND THAT ROCKS."

Women, whether they have "the fran-' chise" or not, influence every good social political matter, and many bud or in--different ones. Women do not reason long and arduously: they jump to conclusions. Having come to a conclusion,: they are frequently indomitably persistent in an endeavor to achieve what tlicy desire. The indomitable and agumentative, not to say the angry persistence, of women is le»s useful in pursuit of the attainable than the calm feminine influence that has no shriek in it. In the matter of women's sufffage in the Old Country, the battle has resolved itself rather into a war against men than a fight for women. It is impossible to consent that Nature ever intended sex to be set against sex in an endeavor on C it the female side to get what it wants, and on the male side to prevent the attainment of what men believe women should not have. The enthralling subject of women's suffrage is approached and argued so diversely that the question is an interminable one. In Britain, although militant and "high-bred" suffragettes have by loud protest induced even factory girls and working women to march under their standard, there has never been any suggestion from the militant suffragettes that there should be voles for all women. A class privilege is desired. rt has never been very clear what the special disabilities are under which women Miller in comparison to British men. the real contention seeming to be that man generally is arraigned against woman in her great fight for n freedom that is not denied her. The j British Prime Minister lias.said that women's suffrage is a mistake of a very disastrous kind, but as he has only been able to watch the operation of women's franchise from a great distance, and as no apparent disasters have accrued in those countries that have adopted complete adult women's franchise, the great barrister may be speaking without the book. In the fight for this illusory freedom the militant British suffragette of the "upper classes," who has more freedom than any other kind of human being in existence, the argument has up to now been wholly on her side. It may be that natural chivalry is not dead, that man metaphorically returns kind words for the flat-iron that is hurled, and therefore the mere man who argues against women's suffrage from a legal basis is not only a bold person, but unique. Mr. Asquith has advised the men who are able to, to "take off their coats" and put the case against women's suffrage

cogently before the public. Before the Prime Minister had given the advice that will make him the special prey of the gently nurtured ladies with hunting whips, an English barrister named Belfor Bax entered the lists with his coat sleeves rolled up, his statutes near at hand and his mind made up to deal women's suffrage a deadly blow. Mr. Bax shows that man's legal privileges in Britain are pale trifles in comparison to the legal privileges of woman who aches to have many more. He avers —but we do not believe him—that women'* influence, even without the vote, has been used to unjustly make laws specially advantageous to (.hem and disadvantageous to men. This, at least, is merely an accusation that the lords of creation who hold the strings of Government have been weak. He instances many well-known laws, showing that women have an unequal advantage. The point that they will always have an unequal advantage, simply because of their sex, and the fact that men occupy the judicial benches, seems to have escaped him. She can, of course, as lie points out, almost always obtain ''vindictive damages" against a man who has refused to marry her, no matter what the circumstances may have been. A bench of women in such cases would probably alter all this. If she commits perjury she ( is not prosecuted', and the fact docs not interfere with the amount of the damages. British law, Mr. Bax points out, I permits a woman to leave her husband and to retain the right of prosecuting him, obtaining maintenance or getting him gaoled. The maintenance law does not work the other way, however, whatever financial position the wife may be in. The husband, too, is responsible for the legal offences of his wife, the assumption of the ancient framers of the law being that the husband "controlled" the ! wife and that she should "obey" him. A husband's neglect to maintain his family is actionable. A wife's similar neglect is not actionable, and so on and on. Mr. Bax does not, however, prove that women's. suffrage would be bad. He merely proves that women have very great privii leges without the vote. The vote to a very limited number of women in Britain would be an acknowledgment only that the British House of Commons was a body that did not work in the interests of men and women, but of meu only. The suggestion that because of the votes of women the members of the House of I Commons would be better selected is not I provable. The influence of women in Britain even without the vote has the most marked effect on the personnel of the House of Commons, and it is impossible and undesirable that there should be any deviation from the custom. The "hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," but the outstanding point is that the most violent suffragettes who rave about their disabilities don't rock a cradle, and don't want to. The women who go quietly about their appointed activities using the personal home influence gather in more votes than the shrieking sisterhood who make it necessary for Ministers of the Crown to walk around 'with an escort of police. I ' =====