and Imperial concern, they have proved themselves as far-seeing and discriminating as men. Because the reform has brought nothing but good, though disaster was freely prophesied, we respectfully urge that all nations enjoying representative government would be well advised in granting votes to women.'
The equal voting rights which these States enjoy must not be held to imply that the status of women in Australia is equal in all respects to that of men. The divorce laws are unequal in some States, and are inimical to women. Although most of the occupations are open to women, the better-paid ones are almost a male monopoly. But an atmosphere has been created and a power bestowed which will make a response to the organised and clearly-expressed wishes of the women an easy thing to secure as compared with the struggles of the past. These, while they never were so hard and so hopeless as in the old countries, had still to be waged against instinctive male prejudice and the conservatism of organised religion.
The women of New Zealand were enfranchised politically in 1893, and since that event they have secured amongst other reforms, equal divorce laws; a legal claim upon the property of the husband by wife and child; the opening of the profession of the law to
