Page:Outlines of the women's franchise movement in New Zealand.djvu/24

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CHAPTER II.


ALTHOUGH the seeds of the Women's Franchise movement had been sown for a quarter of a century and had taken root in many thoughtful minds in the colony, the subject was still regarded as an academic one rather than a matter for practical legislation.

Among those convinced of the wrongfulness of debarring women from a share in the making of laws under which they lived and, in many cases, suffered, was Dr James Wallis. A man of education and rhetorical power, a wide reader and an acute thinker, he was in