NOTES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2689, 24 July 1894, Page 2

NOTES.

Lawyers have their uses in Parliament, much as they are condemned. They know the law; they know its weak spots, and, if they desire to do so, know how it should be amended. The Hon. John McGregor is proving this by some useful measures he is introducing. One of these is to legitimise children born before marriage. In the event of a child being born before marriage to parents who afterwards get married, if this Bill passes they can go to a justice of the peace, make a declaration stating that they are the parents of the child and that they have since been married, and then the registrar of births, deaths, and marriages shall register the child as their lawful issue.

No Parliament has hitherto treated women so badly as the present one, which is the first elected under the female franchise. All newspaper correspondents agree that the mention of anything which aims at extending woman's sphere of political activity raises a smile and is spoken of with levity. The self-con-stituted champions of women in Parliament are to a certain extent responsible for this, by introducing measures which no one has demanded, and which women do not want. One of these is the Bill to qualify women to sit in Parliament, discussing which the House has spent a couple of days. This measure, however, does not go far enough in the opinion of Mr Russell, the member for Riccarton. He has introduced a measure to render women eligible for election or appointment to any public office or position to which a man may be appointed. When we find women are eligible to be mayors of boroughs, and in virtue thereof justices of the peace, we do not see the necesssity for this. The law requires amending in the interests of women. For instance, a man can now will away his property and leave his wife destitute after his death. The only remedy a wife has is to prove that when he made the will ho was of unsound mind, and to do this is a difficult and expensive process. This should not be. Women have a perfect right to a share of their husband's wealth ; as in most instances they work for it as well as the man, and the law ought to be such as that no husband could bequeath, by will, the wife's share, but of course this should be dependent on the character of the wife. Where husband and wife live together until death neither lunacy, nor eccentricity, nor anything else should enable the husband to despoil the wife of her share. It ought to belong to her by right, not by will, and no one else ought to have any control over it. Why don't the self-constituted champions oi praen see to this ? Because they nave not grains enough to see that it is wanted. They are making a great fuss about nothing at all, and indulging iu what may be called " larrikin tricks" to secure the good opinion of women.