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VIII
FEMALE SUFFRAGE

I do not propose, in the present chapter, to discuss the hackneyed arguments for and against female suffrage, but to indicate the progress of the movement in the several Provinces of Australasia, and to note some of the results of the adoption of adult suffrage in South Australia and New Zealand.

As regards the other Provinces, we are bound to consider the existing franchise for the election of members of the Assembly in order to realise what would be the effect of extending it to women upon similar terms. In Victoria manhood suffrage would be superseded by adult suffrage; in New South Wales and Western Australia, where residence of three and six months, respectively, forms a qualification, the vast majority of women would obtain a place on the rolls; but in Tasmania and Queensland the right to exercise the franchise would be confined, practically, to widows and women of independent means.

We are also bound to take into consideration the constitution of the Legislative Council in order to gauge the full significance of female suffrage. If it is elective, as the electors must be qualified as freeholders, leaseholders, or occupiers, the vote would be confined to women of independent means and widows or spinsters in personal occupation, and, while the wife and daughters of the poor man would necessarily be excluded from the register, those of the rich man might, as has been done in South Australia, receive special gifts of freehold property which would be sufficient to render them eligible. To this extent, therefore, as in Tasmania and, to a small degree, wherever plural voting is allowed, female suffrage would constitute a new property vote. Similar conditions would not prevail when the members of the Council are nominated upon the recommendation of Ministers who are subject to the control of the popular representatives.

It is probable that Victoria will be the next Province to follow the example of South Australia and New Zealand. A ministerial measure which would have introduced female suffrage, though only in the constituencies of the Assembly, has twice been passed by that House. On the first occasion it was rejected by the Council, on the second it was laid aside on the ground that it had not been approved by the absolute majority which is required in the case of amendments of the constitution. Both Bills were rendered distasteful to the Council by the inclusion of a provision for the abolition of the plural vote, but it is unlikely that the first would, apart from that fact, have been accepted. Many members of the Council, I was told, are favourable to female suffrage, but would have voted in accordance with their opinion that important constitutional changes should not be passed until they have been placed before the electorate. As the life of the Assembly may not exceed three years, the reference need not long be delayed.

In Tasmania, in 1896, the House of Assembly passed a private Bill containing a similar limitation to that in the Victorian measure, and was equally unable to secure the concurrence of the Council. A resolution in favour of female suffrage has been adopted by a large majority in the Assembly of New South Wales, but the question has not been taken up by either of the recognised parties. The Premier may be reckoned as a personal supporter, but declines to move in the matter in view of differences of opinion in the Cabinet. Neither in Western Australia nor in Queensland does the subject arouse much interest.

Such is the state of feeling in five of the six Australian Provinces. In South Australia an arduous contest was concluded in 1894 by the passage of an Act which placed women upon an absolute equality with men in the right to vote for members both of the Assembly and of the Council. It is unnecessary to trace the history of the agitation which may be said to have commenced in 1888 upon the formation of the Women's Franchise League, though a Bill for the enfranchisement of women of property had previously been introduced. Thenceforward it was pursued vigorously, and culminated in 1893, when the Government pronounced in favour of adult suffrage. But the difficulties were not at an end: the Bill of that year was wrecked, mainly because its adoption was to be dependent upon an affirmative plebiscite; reintroduced in the following year without the obnoxious clause, it was passed through both Houses of Parliament, though only by the bare statutory majority in the Assembly, and shortly afterwards received the Queen's assent.

During the course of the debates the Premier, who holds the portfolio of Attorney-General, said that, if women were entitled to vote, they would have the right to sit in Parliament, and the Assembly, by twenty-eight votes to eight, refused to exclude them. A doubt has since been expressed, which is not shared by the Ministry, whether they are qualified to be elected to the Council. I have not had the opportunity to read the arguments, which concern the interpretation of several statutes, but they would be of no great interest, the main point being that Parliament intended to enable women to sit in both Houses. In New Zealand, on the other hand, the enfranchising Act of 1893 expressly denied to women the right of election to the House of Representatives or nomination to the Council; and the succeeding House, though elected under adult suffrage, refused to go back upon this decision. The subsequent proposal of the Premier that women should be eligible for nomination to the Council, was intended, I believe, partly as a bid for their support, partly as a means of casting ridicule upon the non-representative body.

The first elections in South Australia under the new franchise were held early in 1896, and, apart from a few rural constituencies in which the issues were personal rather than political, were contested under three recognised programmes. The National Defence League, or Opposition, mentioned in its programme no items which were likely to be especially attractive to the female voters, and treated as open questions temperance legislation, and religious instruction in State schools; the Labour platform, with discreet vagueness, advocated any equitable and reasonable claims of women for the amendment of the laws; and the Ministerial policy, as enunciated by the Premier, included an amendment of the Licensed Victuallers' Act in the direction of greater local control over licenses, and various measures of social reform, of which the principal were the raising of the age of consent, the simplification of the remedies of deserted wives, and the restriction of the importation and sale of opium. It should be mentioned, however, that, as the Labour Party are united in a close, though independent, alliance with the Government, the supporters of the one in many cases voted for the candidates of the other. In several constituencies a Ministerialist and a Labour man contested the two seats and received jointly the assistance of both parties.

As the Women's Franchise League had been dissolved upon the attainment of its purpose, the only organisation which interested itself, specifically, in the female voters was the W.C.T.U., which, having drawn up a scheme of reforms, suggested that it should be used as a basis for ascertaining the views of candidates, but did not seek directly to influence the votes of its members though leaning, undoubtedly, to the side of the Government. Its efforts to instruct women in the method of voting enabled returning officers to congratulate them on their knowledge of the business. From personal observation I can bear witness to the extreme orderliness of the proceedings, both during and after the poll.

The elections resulted in a slight accession of strength to the ranks of the Ministerialists and Labour members. As these are very Radical, the majority of women, contrary to the expectations of many, had failed to display Conservative predilections. It would seem, indeed, if we take also into consideration the result of two General Elections in New Zealand, that their so-called Conservatism takes the form, not of an aversion from advanced legislation, but of a disinclination to bring about a change of Ministry. Under masculine influences, South Australia had forty-two Ministries in forty years; women entered the arena and a Ministry which had held office for three years was again returned to power. An allowance must, of course, be made for a feeling of gratitude to those through whom the privilege of the vote had been obtained. Equally wrong was the anticipation that the women would be found to be subject to clerical influences. At the instigation of those who were under this impression, the electors were invited, under a direct reference, to say whether they desired the introduction of religious instruction in State schools during school hours and the payment of a capitation grant to denominational schools for secular results. Both questions were answered emphatically in the negative, the second by a majority of more than three votes to one. The W.C.T.U. was in favour of religious instruction, but strongly opposed to the capitation grant.

The general conclusion formed after the elections was that, in the vast majority of cases, the women had voted in the same way as their masculine relatives, and that domestic harmony had not been disturbed. It was impossible to obtain definite data, as the Premier refused, rightly enough, to sanction the issue of different voting papers for the two sexes. But, even if the female franchise merely increased the number of votes and did not affect the result of the elections, it does not follow that it has been nugatory.

Members who have to consider the wishes of female as well as male constituents will shape their actions accordingly. The effects of this influence cannot yet be studied fully in South Australia, as they were not manifested, to any great extent, in the first session of the new Parliament. A Licensed Victuallers' Act was passed, as had been promised by the Premier, which instituted local control over the issue of licenses, but provided, in accordance with statutory enactment, that the refusal of licenses, or reduction in their number, should be accompanied by compensation to the parties directly interested. As the Province has a steadily growing industry in the cultivation of the vine, Prohibitionists will be met by a serious obstacle to their crusade. In pursuance of an ad feminas captandas agitation for the prohibition of the employment of barmaids which had been carried on during the elections, the Assembly inserted a clause in the Bill which prohibited their employment after a certain number of years, but submitted to its excision by the Council. A Bill which would have given to widows a legal right to one-third of their deceased husband's property was discussed, but allowed to lapse. The Franchise Act, I should have stated, allowed a female elector, upon the completion of certain formalities, to vote through the post if she would be absent from her home on the day of the election, a privilege already accorded to men, or if she were resident more than three miles from the nearest polling place, or, by reason of the state of her health, would probably be unable to vote at the polling place on the day of the poll. This provision, which permitted open voting, was found to have led to abuses, and the Government passed an amending Act which withdrew all the supplementary privileges except the last, and required absent voters to fill in the paper at a postmaster's office and without supervision. As I was not in South Australia during the session, I am unable to give more than a brief summary of the proceedings which may be connected, directly or indirectly, with the extension of the franchise to women.

But when we turn to New Zealand, where a House elected under adult suffrage has fulfilled its allotted term of three years, we may expect to find more definite results. In that Province, as in South Australia, women were enfranchised by a House which had received no popular mandate to that effect; in fact, the matter had scarcely been discussed in the constituencies, though attention had been drawn to it by the advocacy of several successive Premiers. In 1892, however, a new Electoral Bill, which conferred the franchise on all adult women, was passed by the House of Representatives and accepted by the Council subject to the insertion of a clause which absolved women in some cases from attendance at the polling booth. The Government refused to accept the amendment, and the Bill lapsed for the session. In the following year it was reintroduced in the original form, and was passed by both Houses, though only by a slender majority in the Council. The Act contains the striking and, as far as I know, unique provision that the names of voters who have not exercised their privileges are to be erased from the rolls, though a claim for reinstatement may be made at the next periodical revision.

The elections, which took place at the end of 1893, aroused widespread interest in the members of the fair sex, of whom nine out of every eleven who were registered went to the poll and proved conclusively that, though the desire for the vote might not have been general, women would not refrain from its exercise. With the help of their lords and masters, they falsified the expectations of those who had anticipated a reaction in favour of Conservatism, by retaining in power, with an increased majority, a Government which is, in some respects, even more Radical than that of South Australia. So complete was the defeat of the Opposition that it was reduced to a remnant of twenty members in a House of seventy-four. Another important feature was the return of a body of Prohibitionists who aimed at legislation which would enable the electors in a locality to close all the public-houses by a bare majority. As they sat on both sides of the House, they did not affect the numerical strength of the two parties, but constituted a force which it was impossible for the Government to ignore. But while the consequent liquor legislation and the increased prominence of the temperance movement are the principal effects of the extension of the franchise to women, other measures of considerable importance are connected with the new factor in the sphere of politics.

Some of these would, doubtless, have been passed in any case. The Shops and Shop Assistants Act of 1894, for instance, which limits the total number of hours in a week, and the number of consecutive hours in a day, during which women and persons under eighteen years of age may be employed in a shop, and requires shopkeepers to provide sitting accommodation for their female employés, was passed by the preceding House of Representatives, and would have become law but for its rejection by the Council. Similarly, the greater stringency in the limitation of the hours of employment of women and young persons in factories, the exclusion of young persons from certain dangerous trades, and the prohibition of the employment of women within a month of their confinement, all of which were included in the Factories Act of the same year, might have been expected in the natural progress of industrial legislation. The appointment of women, also, as inspectors of factories, gaols, and asylums is in accordance with the recent practice of other countries. The same may be said of the Infant Life Protection Act, which seeks to prevent baby-farming, and of Acts dealing with the adoption of children and with industrial schools, though it is probable that their passage has been hastened by a knowledge of the approval of the female voters. Their influence is also seen in measures such as the raising of the age of consent to sixteen, in a country, be it remembered, in which girls come much more early to maturity than in England, the permission accorded to women to be enrolled as barristers and solicitors, and the simplification of the procedure where a judicial separation is desired. Parliament has discussed, but without legislative results, proposals that the sexes should be placed on an equality as regards the grounds for a divorce, and that a divorce should be obtainable if either party become insane or be sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.

But we can trace the influence of women most directly in the desire of the Premier, to which I have referred, to render them eligible for nomination to the Council, and in the attempts to put an end to the legal sanction accorded by the State to betting, immorality, and drink. In these matters members are face to face with the most pronounced opinions of their female constituents.

The prevention of gambling is sought through the suppression of the totalisator, which was legalised in 1889. In the following years, it is admitted, the number of licenses issued was in excess of the requirements of the population, and it was felt, even by the advocates of the machine, when a strongly supported effort was made in the House of Representatives to abolish it, that a concession was inevitable. In its final form the measure reduced by one-third the number of licenses which might be issued thenceforward, and prohibited all persons from betting with minors and from laying or taking odds dependent upon the dividend paid by the totalisator.

The female voters are even more anxious to secure the repeal of the C.D. Act, though it has for several years been a dead letter. It only applies to districts which the Government declares to be subject to its provisions, and no Ministry at the present time would venture to recommend its application nor Municipal Council to proffer such a request. But the women will not be satisfied until they have expunged from the Statute Book an Act which they declare to be a disgrace to New Zealand. Their purpose would have been effected by a short measure which was passed by the House of Representatives but rejected by the nominated Legislative Council, which is less amenable to public opinion. They have also inspired the Government to greater stringency in the administration of the law against keepers of houses of ill-fame, which has led, according to common report, to a large increase in the prevalence of venereal diseases.

In order to understand the position of affairs as it affects the Prohibitionists in their crusade against public-houses, it is necessary to have some knowledge, in their broadest aspects, of the constitution and powers of the licensing authority and of the gradual extension of popular control. Under an Act of 1881 the regulation of the traffic was placed in the hands of elective Licensing Committees, and the first step in the direction of popular control was taken by the provision that additional licenses, except in special cases, should not be granted until they had been demanded by a poll of the ratepayers. Objections to the granting or renewal of licenses might be made by private individuals, the police and corporate bodies, and should specify, as the ground of objection, that the proposed licensee was an undesirable person, that the premises were unsuitable, or that "the licensing thereof is not required in the neighbourhood." The words that I have quoted were seized upon by the Prohibitionists, who had gathered strength during the following years as a justification for the refusal of all licenses if they could capture the Licensing Committee. In Sydenham, a suburb of Christchurch, they were at length successful, and were confronted with the bitter antagonism of the brewers. After several years of litigation they were defeated conclusively, and were thrown back upon an agitation for the amendment of the law.

The next important measure, that of 1893, was passed by representatives elected under manhood suffrage, who knew that when they sought a renewal of confidence they would be called upon to justify their actions, not only in the eyes of Prohibitionists, but in those of the newly enfranchised female electors. We shall therefore not be surprised to find that the Act introduced a great extension of the principle of popular control. It placed both the election of the Licensing Committees and the Local Option polls on the basis of adult suffrage and enlarged the scope of the latter. Previously, as we have seen, the electors were only allowed to decide as to the advisability of additional licenses. Herein their power was curtailed, as such polls were not to be held unless a census had shown that the population of a district had increased by 25 per cent. in the quinquennial period. This was a concession to Prohibitionists who would welcome a change which rendered the increase of licenses more difficult. But the principal innovation was the control given to the electorate over the renewal of all publicans' accommodation or bottle licenses. Triennial polls were to be held, at which they were to be invited to say whether they desired the continuation, reduction, or abolition of licenses, subject to the proviso that prohibition would not be deemed to be carried except by a three-fifths majority of the votes, and that the poll would be void unless it had been attended by a majority of the registered electors. Should prohibition not be carried, the votes in its favour were to be added to those cast for reduction, and, in the event of reduction, the Licensing Committee were to refuse to renew the licences of not more than one in four of the publicans in the district, commencing with those whose licenses had been endorsed, and proceeding with those who offered little or no accommodation to travellers. No provision was made for compensation to persons who, through no fault of their own, might be dispossessed of their licenses. As the Act declared that the poll should be regarded as void unless one-half of the electors recorded their votes, it was to the obvious interest of anti-prohibitionists to abstain from attendance at the booths, and the figures consequently afford no index of the full strength of the opposing parties. The Prohibitionists, however, had little cause to be dissatisfied with the results of their first appeal to the electorate, which included women as well as men: prohibition was carried in one case, reduction in fourteen, while in the remainder the poll was either void or the votes were cast in favour of existing conditions.

The amending Act of 1895 has made no substantial alterations in the law in spite of the persistent agitation of Prohibitionists in favour of prohibition on the vote of a bare majority. It was decreed that licensing polls should be held concurrently with General Elections, that voters should be allowed to vote both for prohibition and reduction, though the two votes could, naturally, no longer be combined in favour of the latter, that the vote should affect all forms of licenses, and, in view of the district in which prohibition had been carried, that, in such cases, the issue should be between the continued refusal of licenses and their restoration to the former number. Under the present law, it will be noted, should successive reductions lead to the cancellation of all licenses, a vote of the electors can never restore more licenses than existed at the time when the last was doomed to extinction.

The second poll was taken at the end of 1896 and resulted in the failure to carry either prohibition or reduction in any district. The figures were as follows: continuation, 139,249; reduction, 94,226; prohibition, 98,103. Though the Prohibitionists had been enabled to increase their vote by nearly 50,000 and had therein sufficient grounds for the hope of ultimate success, it is probable that they would have been more successful but for the intemperance of their leaders, who aim at prohibition alone and care neither for the regulation of the traffic nor for reduction. They were also handicapped by the frantic efforts of the brewers, who spent their ample funds freely and were able to command the votes of many who were interested, either directly or indirectly, in the trade; and by an alliance between the brewers and many of the Ministerialists. While the General Election and the Local Option poll constituted distinct issues, and there was no reason why a supporter of the Government should feel bound to vote for the continuation of licenses, it is an undoubted fact that a large number of the women of the working classes, who might have been expected to be opposed to the public-houses, voted, on that occasion, in favour of their retention. At Wellington, where, as at Adelaide, I was struck by the prevailing orderliness, the only women whom I noted as taking an active part in the proceedings were canvassing in favour of the brewers.

At first sight it seems strange that the brewers should have worked with the party which had passed the most stringent liquor legislation on the Statute Book, but it must be remembered that this question had neither been debated nor divided the House on the ordinary lines of cleavage. The brewers, many persons maintain, know that they have the sympathy of the Government which, according to this hypothesis, has done as little as possible to meet the wishes of the Prohibitionists, and that only under virtual compulsion, and, in its measure of 1896, introduced a Bill which would certainly be rejected by the Council and was calculated to cast ridicule upon the agitation of the Prohibitionists. It was provided therein that a fourth issue should be added at the Local Option polls, that of national prohibition, and that, if it were carried by a three-fifths majority of the votes recorded in all the districts, it should be unlawful, subject to the exception mentioned hereafter, to import into the Province any liquor for any purpose or to distil it in the Province or to manufacture it for sale or barter. No person selling any spirituous or distilled perfume, nor any apothecary, chemist, or druggist administering or selling any spirituous, distilled, or fermented liquor for medicinal use, should do so otherwise than in such combination as rendered it unfit for use as a beverage. The Governor might declare, by notice in The Gazette, by what combination of ingredients the articles would be rendered sufficiently unpalatable. Persons requiring liquor for medicinal use or use in the arts and manufacturers were to make applications to Her Majesty's Customs and if their bonâ fides were proved, might receive it, for ready money, "in such closed and sealed bottles or other receptacle as that the liquor therein cannot be poured out without such seal being first broken," and attached "with a Government label declaring the kind, quantity, quality, and price of the liquor, as these may be determined by the Governor." In this measure the Government seem to have attempted to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. The brewers would laugh in their sleeves and the Prohibitionists would welcome a measure which instituted machinery for the attainment of national prohibition. If the assumption be correct, the latter are credited with a lamentable lack of any sense of humour; from all appearances they are not prepared to allow themselves to be hoodwinked.

Many of the representatives seem to have had an equally low opinion of the average intelligence of female electors, as they sought to capture the votes of domestic servants by a Bill which was rejected by the Council, in which a weekly half-holiday was decreed to them except in cases of sickness or death in the family, or where an annual holiday of not less than fourteen days had been substituted by mutual agreement between employers and their servants. How the period of rest was to be enforced was, perhaps wisely, not laid down, as domestics would, in few cases, be prepared to give information against their employers. Those among the latter, however, who took the matter seriously would, presumably, guard themselves against judiciary proceedings by compelling their servants to be out of the house on the holiday between three o'clock and half-past nine, whatever might be the state of the weather. Again, the undoubted evil, that young girls, by the culpable weakness of their parents, are allowed to parade the streets at night, was to be cured, according to the Government, by the so-called Juvenile Depravity Suppression Bill, which failed to meet with acceptance by the usually docile House of Representatives. Its danger and absurdity can be gathered, without further comment, from the quotation of one of the clauses: "Whenever any constable finds any girl" (who is apparently not over the age of sixteen years) "loitering in the streets or in out-of-the-way places after the hour of ten of the clock at night, and he has reason to believe that she is there for improper purposes, the following provisions shall apply:—

"1. He shall forthwith take her to the nearest beat of another constable, or, failing him, to the nearest justice or clergyman, or, failing him, to the nearest house of some married person of good repute, in whose presence the girl shall be questioned as to her name, her abode, her parents or guardians, and her reason for being from home and loitering as aforesaid.

"2. The constable shall then take, or shall cause her to be taken, to her home, where she shall be handed over to the person in charge of the house, and the constable shall forthwith on his return from duty make report of the facts to the officer in charge of the station."

Should the offence be repeated and the girl's reply be deemed by the officer in charge of a police station to be unsatisfactory, she may be brought before a magistrate and be committed to a reformatory or an industrial school. Some justification, I must add, for the seemingly depreciatory opinion of the members was afforded by the proceedings at the convention of the National Council of Women held at Christchurch early in 1896. This Association, which claims to be non-political and to focus the views of the women of New Zealand, passed resolutions in favour of the nationalisation of the land, a compulsory eight hours' day, and the enactment of a minimum rate of wages; but the climax was reached when it was resolved that "in all cases where a woman elects to superintend her own household and to be the mother of children, there shall be a law attaching a certain just share of her husband's earnings or income for her separate use, payable if she so desires it into her separate account." The first portion of this sentence is mysterious, and seems to be based on the assumption that the husband has nothing to say in the matter.