SIXTEEN REASONS FOR WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 378, 1 August 1874, Page 3

SIXTEEN REASONS FOR WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.

An ardent supporter of the Female Suffrage movement has handed us the following reasons for extending to the ladies the ■ same political rights which are enjoyed by the sterner sex :—: — • 1. Because it is a doctrine of the British Constitution that Taxation and Representation go to together. 2. Because about one- sixth of those who hold the qualification to vote are women. , 3. Because a widow or spinster who his a householder seldom has made relatives to press her political desires upon members of Parliament. 4. Because the grievances of women (which are very numerous), not being laid before Parliament through a constitutional representative, remain littie known and unredressed. 5. Because, while the law gives to men, bad or good, wise or foolish, youthful or aged, the vote for Parliament, if only they have a property qualification, and refuses the same vote to every womeu , even of mature age, virtuous, educated, and wealthy; it teaches the whole nation to underrate the female sext <J. Because also the law, which, thus depreciates the sex. has hindered advancing civilisation from giving to woman her rightful equality in pecuniary matters ; has depressed -her. in the family and in the bequests of kinsfolk ; has drawn after it a comparative neglect of her education both by parents and by the State ; and has stereotyped a public sentiment, which debars her from lucrative occupations suited to her ability. 7. Because this injustice of the law is the more distressing, now that two and a half millions, of females have to earn their own living without male assistance. 8 Because their exclusion from the suffrage leads to their exclusion from posts of adminstration admirably adapted to their talents, and thus damages the public service: while it also destroys their greatest motive for solid cultivation, and tends to make them frivolous. 9. Because the admission of woman into greater political influence would tend to soften asperities and purify our whole state. Female influence, if allowed due scope, would especially repress our worst curses, such as drunkenness and hruworality. .10. Because it becomes plain that the denial of the Parliamentary vote to woman is an arbitrary and high-handed exercise of power, as soon as it is understood that her exercises oi municipal suffrage — with her liubility to certain local duties — has been handed down from distant times. 11. Beuaueo under our hereditary an.l unbroken tradition, whether Saxo'a, AngloNorman, or English, Queens have been accepted, not as au iimoratioa, or as au anomaly needing special procedures of State, but as in constitutional routine ; a fact which is in itself a memento aud protest against the political depression of women. 12. Because a large number of our countrywomen, including many of those most prominent in intellect or beneficence, ha^e petitioned IParlistmoTifc for the fraiioliiso, and aro expending labor and mouey to obtain it. 13. Because tlie recent extension of the franchise to a class of men often ignorant as well as poor, makes the denial of it more galling to educated $ud taxpaying women. 1-i. Because in the State, as in the household, the co-operatiou of women with men is often of cardinal importance. 15. Because the exercise of the franchise tends to promote patriotism in mothers, and thereby in the whole rismgjgeneration oi' the lower classes. 16. Because, although, in the long run (that is to say, in the course of ages) all classea of a notion have but one interest, yet in the course of every lifetimo men and women have interests diverse, or even coutrary, just as agriwdturists and manufacturers, or farmers and landlords ; so- that women cannot be fitly represented by legislators who are elected by men only.