Australasian Democracy

by Henry de Rosenbach Walker

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.