has also been reduced from 130 in the 1000 to half that number. Our own anti-suffragists are quite capable of representing that this argument means that we are so foolish as to suppose that if a mother drops a paper into a ballot-box every few years she thereby prolongs the life of her infant. Of course we do nothing of the kind; but we do say that to give full citizenship to women deepens in them the sense of responsibility, and they will be more likely to apply to their duties a quickened intelligence and a higher sense of the importance of the work entrusted to them as women. The free woman makes the best wife and the most careful mother.
The confident prediction that women when enfranchised would not take the trouble to record their votes has been falsified. The figures given in the official publication, The New Zealand Year Book; are as follows:—
| Date. | Men. | Women. | ||
| Electoral Roll. |
Actually Voted. |
Electoral Roll. |
Actually Voted. | |
| 1893 | 193,536 | 129,792 | 109,461 | 90,290 |
| 1896 | 196,925 | 149,471 | 142,305 | 108,783 |
| 1899 | 210,529 | 159,780 | 163,215 | 119,550 |
| 1902 | 229,845 | 180,294 | 185,944 | 138,565 |
| 1905 | 263,597 | 221,611 | 212,876 | 175,046 |
| 1908 | 294,073 | 238,538 | 242,930 | 190,114 |
This table shows that men and women who are on the electoral roll vote in almost the same proportion. The number of votes actually polled compared with the number on the register is, of course, to some extent affected by the number of constituencies in which there is no contest, or in which the result is regarded as a foregone conclusion; but this consideration affects both sexes alike. It is impossible for reasons of space to enter in detail in this little book upon the history in each of the Australian States of the adoption of
