Source 4:  Newspaper cutting, 'Shetland News', 23 March 1912

 

Description

This article first appeared in the 'Shetland News' on 23 March 1912.

The image has been provided courtesy of Shetland Museum and Archives.

Transcript

Many people are still ignorant why women want the vote, though no subject has been more talked of in recent years. If the papers published accounts of the solid work done by Suffragists with the same alacrity they publish sensational militant and anti-Suffrage news, this would not be the case.

Labour, wages, housing, education, drunkenness, immorality, and war are all questions that concern women as deeply as men. But all the laws affecting them have hitherto been made by men. They have not shown that they can cope with them. These questions are as acute as ever.

It is more and more strongly felt by people engaged or interested in public work that women should be given opportunity to deal with these questions of common human interest. They should be given equal voice in choosing the legislators of their county to whom such questions are always ultimately referred. It is nonsense to say laws do not really affect these things. In the process of civilization all questions of common human interest are ultimately referred to the State.

Women enfranchised would take a far keener interest in these great questions they have hitherto left to men. They would immeasurably strengthen the laws against evil. This has already been shown in New Zealand, where drunkenness has been reduced 90 per cen and crime has almost disappeared in the districts where temperance regulations are enforced.