BISMARCK AND WOMEN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10065, 10 June 1910, Page 3

BISMARCK AND WOMEN.

Bismarck is ievealed as an advc cate of women's suffrage in a hithect unpublished conversation which young woman had with the Iroi Chancellor on the eve of his retire ment from public life. The text o the conversation will, says a London correspondent, be read at a politica meeting this week, and will appeal in pamphlet form. Bismarck is quoted as saying:—"What I am I have become through my wife. I respect every woman who elevates us men, teaches ua religion and morality, preserves our ideals, and scatters roses along the path of our early life. I have long wished for the cooperation of women in politics, but we are not yet advanced enough. WoI men should not encroach upon men, but should influence and soften them and lead them to good works. Mark my words, the day will come when women will be called to co-operate in politic?. We men are clumsy. We Germans especially are bears. So are the diplomatists. Moreover, if women were in politics, fewer secrets would become public, for a clever feminine mouth can keep silence. Yet in the midst of innocent conversation it understands how to 1 extract many a secret which it keeps from us men." Woman chatters so delightfully about the gravest topics that one—when one is an old donkey—fails to notice one has said more than one wished. In everything that has to do with slyness women is our superior." Meeting later in the day the same lady to whom he imparted these confidences Bismarck said: "Well, probably we shall not meet again in this world. The old lion is retiring growling to the dark forests. My work has not been in vain. It will live, for if Germany's men become weak, Germany's women will be strong."