Page:The case for women's suffrage.djvu/154

This page has been validated.
150
THE CASE FOR WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

Judicial Separation (1896, Amendment 1902), Prohibition of Secret Commissions (1905), Seats for Shop Assistants (1899), Slander of Women (1900), Trades Unions (1902), Truck Act (1899), and many other social, industrial and domestic Acts, which I have not space to mention. New South Wales, the third State to give women the vote, began immediately on social reforms. The age of consent was raised from fourteen years to sixteen. Infant Mortality and Legitimation of Children, Juvenile Smoking Prohibition, Liquor Reform Bill (no compensation), Women Inspectors for Early Closing have been appointed, Wages Boards to abolish Sweating created, and attempts made to enforce equal wages for equal work, and Several other reforms are under discussion. A Local Government Bill has been carried and a State Children's Bill, to give the poor, neglected, or orphaned child a trade to commence life on. Public-houses are closed all day on Sundays, early closing and half-holiday for shop assistants, women factory inspectors, police matrons—and many other things which make life bright and endurable for our workers. The Wages Board of Australia has acted so well in putting down sweating that this same Government, which sent 140 women to prison for asking for the vote to help put down this gigantic evil, has sent a Commissioner to Australia to inquire into its working, with a view of solving the evil which exists in Britain. (In New Zealand sub-contracting is forbidden by law, and sweating is absolutely impossible there.) Would it not be more economical to enfranchise the British women and let them help the Government to wipe