Conditions in England are an evidence of how much more difficult it is for the woman’s rights movement to make progress in old countries than in new. Traditions are deeply rooted, customs are firmly established, the whole weight of the past is blocking the wheels of progress. In countries with older civilization the woman’s question is entirely a question of force.[52]

CANADA

Total population:5,372,600.
Women:2,619,578.
Men:2,751,473.
Canadian Federation of Women’s Clubs.
Canadian Woman’s Suffrage Association.

Politically Canada belongs to England, geographically it is a part of North America. The Canadian women take a keen interest in the woman’s rights movement of the United States, which is setting them an excellent example. The last congress of the “International Council of Women” met in Toronto, Canada, under the presidency of Lady Aberdeen, the present president and the wife of the former governor-general of Canada. Canada is a large, young, agricultural country with large families and primitive needs. Therefore the progress of the woman’s rights movement is less marked in Canada than in the United States and England. Throughout Canada the workingwoman is paid less than the workingman, partly because she is more poorly trained, partly because she is kept in subordinate positions, partly because, in order to find work at all, she must offer her services for less money. Even when teaching, or doing piecework, woman is paid less than man. In Canada there is as yet no political woman’s rights movement strong enough to rectify this injustice by means of organizations and laws as has been done in Australia. As yet there are no women preachers in Canada. Women lawyers are confronted both with popular prejudice and legal obstacles. The study and practice of medicine is made very difficult for women, especially in Quebec and Montreal. In New Brunswick and Ontario as well as in the northwest provinces there is a more liberal attitude toward women’s pursuit of higher education. No Canadian university excludes women entirely, but not a few of the higher institutions of learning refuse women admission to certain courses and refuse to grant certain degrees. The prevailing property laws in the eastern part of Canada legalize joint property holding (and we know what that means for woman); in the western part there is separation of property rights or at least separate control over earnings, the wife having full control of her wages. The male Canadian, when twenty-one years old, becomes a voter and has full political rights.[53] But the Canadian woman has only restricted suffrage rights. Unmarried women that are taxpayers exercise only active suffrage in municipal and school elections. Each province has its own laws regulating these conditions of suffrage.

The Copenhagen Congress (1906) of the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance promoted the cause of woman’s suffrage in Canada very considerably. At a public meeting in which the Canadian delegate, Mrs. MacDonald Denison, gave a report of the work of the International Congress, a resolution favoring woman’s suffrage was adopted, and this was used very effectively in propaganda. This propaganda was carried on among women’s clubs, students’ clubs, debating clubs, etc. The intellectual élite is to-day in favor of woman’s suffrage. In 1907 the Canadian Woman’s Suffrage Association, supported by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Women Teachers, the Medical Alumnæ, the Progressive Thought Association, the Toronto Local Council of Women, and the Progressive Club, sent a delegation to the Mayor and Council of the city of Toronto to express their support of a resolution which the Council had drawn up favoring the right of married women to vote in municipal elections. Thus supported, the resolution was presented to the authorized commission, but here it was weakened by an amendment (granting the suffrage only to married women owning property). The author of this amendment, a member of the Toronto City Council, received his reward for this kindness to the women in the form of a defeat at the next election.

Organizations favoring woman’s suffrage have been founded throughout the country (Halifax, Nova Scotia; St. John, New Brunswick). Woman’s suffrage advocates speak in mass meetings and in men’s clubs, etc.[54]

A demand for woman’s suffrage, made by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, was answered evasively by the Prime Minister, Sir Wilfred Laurier,—the provincial parliaments must take the matter up first, then the Dominion Parliament can consider it. In the spring of 1909 the City Council of Toronto sent a petition favoring woman’s suffrage to the Canadian Parliament, and at the same time 1000 woman’s suffrage advocates called on the Prime Minister. The 1909 Congress of the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance will undoubtedly help the Canadian woman’s suffrage movement.

SOUTH AFRICA