The formation of this Council has been the sign of a new life in the question in Melbourne. At the General Election of 1894 a determined effort was made to secure the return of a majority of members pledged to vote for the suffrage cause. The Government promised a Bill in the session of 1895, and on November 26th the Premier, Sir George Turner, introduced a Women's Suffrage Bill which passed the House of Assembly without a division, but was lost in the Legislative Council by two votes.
The Women's Suffrage Bill passed the Legislative Assembly in 1897, '98, '99, 1900, '01, each time with an increased majority, but each time its progress has been stopped in the Council.
Nevertheless there are many evidences of increasing vitality in the movement in Victoria, not the least of these being the rise of an Anti-Women's Suffrage Crusade. These "New Crusaders" have presented a petition which purports to be signed by 22,987 "adult women" of Victoria. But in 1891 before the suffrage was a live subject, before it had entered the region of practical politics, the women suffragists in six weeks obtained 30,000 signatures of adult women. The first and the most natural result of the anti-suffrage movement has been to bring down enquiries on the United Council from all parts of the Colony how to help Women's Suffrage.
QUEENSLAND.[494]
The Women's Suffrage question appears to have received its first awakening in Queensland from the visit of Miss Hannah Chenings, who in 1891 came from Adelaide on a lecturing tour in connection with an effort to obtain a law for the better protection of young girls. Her account of the Women's Franchise League in South Australia aroused a wish for a similar organisation here, and after a period of silent growth the Women's Suffrage Association was formed in 1894, mainly through the instrumentality of Mrs. Leontine Cooper and Mrs. Maginie, who, as Miss Allen, had been a member of the New South Wales Society.
At the first annual meeting of this association, in March, 1895, the report showed that petitions had been presented with over 11,000 signatures, and that letters expressing themselves as favorable to the measure had been received from thirty Members of the Legislative Assembly. In the General Election of 1897 a large number of candidates declared themselves in favor, but so far the effort to carry a Bill through the House has met with disappointment, and the Women's Suffrage Association are bending their efforts towards inducing the Government to bring in a Bill. Here, as in the other Colonies where they are still unenfranchised, the women feel deeply the injustice of their exclusion from the Federal Referendum.
TASMANIA.[495]
As long ago as 1885 a Constitutional Amendment Act passed second reading in the Tasmanian House of Assembly which provided for the extension of the Franchise to unmarried women rate-payers, but notwithstanding the support of the Government the question made no further advance in Parliament.
In recent years a Bill to enfranchise women on the same terms as men has passed the House of Assembly on several occasions with increasing majorities, but the opponents are still too numerous to carry it through the Upper House. The Women's Christian Temperance Union have been the most energetic workers in its behalf.
[It will be noticed that in each of these Australian States the Women's Suffrage Bill repeatedly passed the Assembly, or Lower House, which is elected by the people, but was defeated in the Council or Upper House, which is composed entirely of wealthy and aristocratic members, who can be voted for only by these classes, and some of whom are appointed by the Government and hold office for life. In 1901 a Federation of the six States was formed with a National Parliament, both Houses to be elected by the people. In June, 1902, a bill passed this Federal Parliament giving women the right to vote for its members and be elected to this body. About 800,000 women have been thus enfranchised, the largest victory ever gained for this movement.