Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/126

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
118
THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT

amended by the Local Government Act of 1894. In the meantime, the Municipal Franchise had been granted to the women of England and Wales in 1869, to the women of Scotland in 1881, and to the women of Ireland in 1898. The English Act provides that a woman claiming to be registered as an elector must be qualified as an occupier, either as owner or tenant, must be over twenty-one years of age, must not be an alien, and must not have received poor-law relief within the preceding twelve months. Married women may not vote as joint-occupiers with their husbands for Borough Council elections, but may vote for Urban and Rural District Councils, Parish Councils, Poor Law Guardians, Metropolitan Borough Councils, and the London County Council, but not in respect of the same property. No woman is entitled to vote in any election in virtue of her ownership. Previous to the Local Government Act of 1894 a woman might vote in virtue of ownership for Poor Law Guardians, but that right has now ceased to exist.

The women of Ireland, by virtue of the Act of 1898, exercise the local government vote on exactly the same terms as men. All Parliamentary electors, and all those women who, but for their sex, would be Parliamentary electors, are Irish Local Government electors. There is no disability on married women as