How the Women See It.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 12, 20 March 1902, Page 2

How the Women See It.

The daily papers intimate that Mr. Seddon is communicating by telegraph with the members of the House of Representatives in order to ascertain their views as to the advisability of New Zealand offering a tenth contingent for service in South Africa. There is one section of the community who have a somewhat vital interest in the departure of so many young men from the Colony, and whose wishes strangely enough have never yet been consulted in the matter, and that is the young women. If a ' round robin 'on the subject were sent to all the unmarried members of the fair sex we wonder what the result would be. The number of females in the country is already far in excess of the males, and the prospect for ' our girls' is, from their point of view, certainly somewhat dismal. We are inclined to think that many of our girls will soon be ready to endorse the decidedly original ideas recently expressed by an American lady as to the proper method for preserving a fair ratio between the numbers of women and men. In a letter to the Directory newspaper at Torquay —a town in which females outnumber males in a total population of 33,000 by 7000 —she remarks that if matters continue at this rate men will become scarcer and scarcer, and that soon the specimen ' Englishman ' will be so rare that the women folk of the next, and presumably final, generation, will flock to the museums and zoos to see him, stuffed or alive ! Then she adds : —' The step to take is that which rules all laws of supply and demand, by preserving the men who supply the demand. You preserve your game by strict laws ; preserve your men by keeping them at home. If I were the Board of Agriculture —which I gather is the deparment that regulates the comings in and goings out of stock —l should prohibit the embarkation of a gentleman under the penalty of a heavy fine, while women imported should pay duty.'