Woman and the Republic | Page 7

Republic has woman suffrage. With the deposition
of Liliuokalani, woman's directs political power in the Hawaiian
Islands died. In France only the Anarchists "admit women" to public
council, and that party in Germany has here and there inscribed woman
suffrage upon its banners.
Not only England, Scotland and Wales, but Canada, definitely excepts
the vote for members of parliament in giving suffrage to woman, and
only widows and spinsters are admitted to the minor forms of franchise.
As to the other British colonies, what is the situation? Much stress has
been laid on what has been termed the progress of the Suffrage
movement in Australasia. There is but one Australian colony in which
the legislative assembly is elected; in the others it is appointed for life,
or for short terms. Where it is thus appointed, women vote on various

matters. In Victoria, which contains the capital city, Melbourne, and
which is the most progressive and democratic colony in Australia, the
Legislative Assembly is elected, and that body is chosen by
unrestricted male suffrage only, while, as with the House of Commons
in the mother country, clergymen are not allowed to sit in it. In West
Australia, the newest colony, the voting is done by men alone. In Cape
Colony women have restricted municipal suffrage; but the Assembly is
elected by the vote of men who own a certain amount of property.
In the Orange Free State every adult white male is a full burgher,
having a vote for the President, who is chosen for five years. The
Transvaal Republic has no woman suffrage amid its hand-to-hand
struggles.
To comprehend the condition of European governmental affairs, one
must follow the condition of things produced by the struggle of
socialistic and anarchistic elements. Between the King on the one hand,
and these forces on the other, the true Liberal parties are slowly
progressing toward free institutions; both aristocratic and anarchistic
movements being more favorable than liberalism to woman-suffrage
aspirations.
The countries where woman has full suffrage (save in the United States)
are all dependencies of royalty. They are: The Isle of Man, Pitcairn's
Island, New Zealand, and South Australia. The most important of these,
New Zealand, was once a promising colony, but it has been declining
for a quarter of a century. The men outnumber the women by forty
thousand. The act conferring the parliamentary franchise on both
European and Maori women received the royal sanction in 1892. At the
session of Parliament that passed the act a tax was put upon incomes
and one upon land, so that a desperate civilization seemed to be trying
all the experiments at once. Certainly, woman suffrage in New Zealand
was not adopted because the Government was so stable, so strong, so
democratic, that these conditions must thus find fit expression.
[Footnote: The Australasian colonies are taking steps toward the
formation of a Federal Union. While this book is in press news comes
that the Federal Convention, by a vote of 23 to 12, has refused to allow

women to vote for members of the House of Representatives.]
South Australia not only gives women full suffrage, but makes them
eligible to a seat in Parliament. The colony is a vast, mountainous,
largely unsettled region, with a high proportion of native and Chinese,
and, in 1894, had but 73,000 voters, including the women. The
Socialistic Labor movement, which has played a large part in
Australasian politics, here succeeded in dominating the government.
There was an attempt to establish communistic villages with public
money, a proposal to divide the public money pro rata, and one to
build up a system of state life- insurance; and taxes were to be levied
on salaries, and on all incomes above a certain point. It was found that
the sixty thousand women who were authorized to vote throughout
Australia assisted the socialistic schemes that are hindering progress
and that tend to anarchy and not to republicanism. There is a royal
Governor, and suffrage is based on household and property
qualifications. It is an aristocratic and social combination, not a triumph
of democratic ideas or principles. Dr. Jacobi, in her "Common Sense
applied to Woman Suffrage," says: "The refusal to extend
parliamentary suffrage to women who are possessed of municipal
suffrage, does not mean, as Americans are apt to suppose, that women
are counted able to judge about the small concerns of a town, but not
about imperial issues. It means that women are still not counted able to
exercise independent judgment at all, and, therefore, are to remain
counted out when this is called for; but that the property to which they
happen to belong, and which requires representation, must not be
deprived of this on account of an entangling female alliance. This is the
very antipodes of the democratic doctrine, perhaps also