The San Francisco call., 1904-09-10
POLITICAL WOMAN IN
AUSTRALIA is BLESSED
WITH MANY PRIVILEGES

Australia is the most experimental
of all countries and is the proving
gpund for all the advanced ideas re-
specting the arbitration of labor dis
putes, state ownership or control of
public utilities and the ballot, says a
contributor of the Philadelphia Led
ger. Whether these experiments sue
ceed or fail in practice, Australia is
doing the rest OF the world service as
an object lesson. A contribution to
the current number of the Nineteenth
Century and After, by a Melbourne
woman, on The Political Woman in
Australia" presents an interesting
resume of the progress made in the
political emancipation of woman un-
der the most favorable circumstances.
The writer rejoices in the fact that
her country has granted her sex alb
solute political equality with men and
has thereby reached "a position
unique in the worlds history" The
Australian constitution is peculiar in
that it has no sex limitations. The
women enjoy the right to vote equally
with men, may become members OF
the Legislature and hold other of
fees. 1t required about twenty years
to persuade the Australian woman to
ask for the franchise; but it finally be-
came her possession and had a
marked influence upon the recent
Federal elections, when the women
voted in as large numbers proportion
ately as the men in most of the con-
stituencies.
The writer notes that the women as
rule voted for the candidates who
stood for economy in public expendi-
lures and for careful national house
keeping. To the assertion commonly
heard wherever woman suffrage is
urged that women will vote as the
men desire the writer replies that the
elections showed that the women, on
the whole, voted with independence;
at any rate. that they did not vote a
straight or machine" ticket as faith
fully as the men did.
Voting means responsibility, re-
sponsibility means power and power
commands respect" is her epigram-
matte answer to the charge that by
the extension of the franchise to
woman she will lose the "chivalrous
attention of the men. She previous-
ly held that women who would lose
the respect of men by voting were the
most assiduous in courting the wom-
ems votes. The Sir Walter Raleighs
andfDe Lorges are thick as leaves in
Valombrosa at election time.
The writer herself was a candidate
for the Senate of Victoria and was de-
feated. but there were eighteen can
didates in the field and she finds en-
couragement in the returns. which
gave her 51,497 votes, when S5,3S7
were sufficient to elect. She regards
her vote as great triumph. obtained
i lin spite of the opposition of power
ful daily papers and the prejudice
that pioneer always encounters
She thinks that full enfranchisement
for women in England must come by
the action of the labor party. through
which woman suffrage has been made
a question of practical politics in Aus
tralia, instead of remaining, as in
other countries, ''the suffrage States
lin America excepted" a purely aca-
demic question.
Elkhart, Ind, furnishes in Miss Je-
nina Mccoy, an instance of eyesight
restored after years Of blindness. Miss
Mccoy, 50 years old, and blind from
her birth, now sees as the result of a
1eli@ofe o~or,ff>-