THE Thames Guardian AND MINING RECORD. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1871.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 59, 14 December 1871, Page 2

THE Thames Guardian AND MINING RECORD. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1871.

Tiik Provincial Council, on Tuesday night, struck out the words introduced by Mr James Mackay in the Licensing Hill, which deprived women of the right to vote on the question of opening public houses. Mr Mackay, Mr Buckland, Mr Boylan, and Mr Lumlon were the principal speakers against the female franchise. Mr Buckland and Mr Boylan thought the proposal would degrade woman, and he was very indignant that the question of what was dune in public houses, or whether they were a blessing or a curse to families or a neighbourhood, should be submitted to the judg- '.ent oi lemales. He evidently imagined that the female sex is in utter ignorance of the subject, whereas nothing could he a greater mistake. Women are bjit too well

acquainted with the fatal results of the liquor traffic to need much enlightenment on this point. Women have not, like the ostrich, hid their heads, Or even averted their eyes, to the monstrous abuse of the liquor traffic. Messrs May, Creighton, and Swanson wore amongst the speakers on the other side. Mr C height on said he should he ashamed to go to the Assembly next year, and say that he belonged to the Auckland Provincial Council, which had gained such a high reputation for itself on this question, if the Council stultified itself by affirming Mr Mackay’s amendment. Public sentiment was in favour of the principle embodied in the Licensing Act of last year ; and although no petitions had been forwarded to the Council, praying that women should possess the right of voting on this social question, he had presented a petition to the General Assembly from Auckland and its neighbourhood, signed by upwards of 1,200 persons, asking that any Act passed by the Assembly embodying the permissive principle, should contain a clause enabling women to vote. The charge brought against the females by Mr Buckland, that men were driven to drink because the female members ol their families did not make the: r homes happy, was not strictly true. This might be true in a few cases, but it was not true to any considerable extent. The practice of “ shouting,” and multiplicity of drinking bars in every town of the colony was to blame. He strongly advocated the justice and propriety of permitting women to vote on the question. Mr. Swanson demolished Mr. Buckland’s argument in a practical speech, in which he put the women’s case with great force and efleet. On a division, the amendment was carried, and females were restored to their old position under the Licensing Bill. The numbers were 18 to 11.