Women's Franchise Association General Meeting.

*THE WORKER*

Brisbane March 10, 1894

THE EDITORIAL MILL.

Our Motto: “Socialism in our time.”

The first general meeting of the newly formed Woman's Franchise Association was held in the Town Hall Brisbane, on Monday evening last. There was a large attendance of women, who appeared to have divided themselves into two hostile camps – those on the left of the chair-woman (Mrs. Leontine Cooper) being the Property Vote Party; those on the right the One-Woman One-Vote Party. At an early stage of the proceedings it was evident that the battle which took place at the Protestant Hall meeting on the 28^th of February would be fought over again, for when Mrs. J. A. Clark moved that the name of the organisation be “The Woman's Franchise Association,” Miss Florrie Collings immediately jumped to her feet to move an amendment that the word “Equal” be inserted in the motion before the word “Franchise.” Mrs. MacFie seconded the amendment, and the struggle commenced. After Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Moginie had counted 12 votes for the amendment, some of the ladies wished to know what the word “equal” meant.

Mrs. Cooper said she could see no difference between the motion and amendment, but one lady said the amendment meant that no women should have property votes. The lady – tellers surrendered their task to Messrs. Clark and Higgs, who agreed that the amendment was carried by 55 votes to 53. First win for the One-Woman-One-Vote Party. The Property Vote Party were undaunted, and Mrs. Preston moved and Mrs. Clough seconded, “That the object of this Association is to obtain the franchise for women on the same conditions as those which apply to men,” which meant that poor women whose occupations or whose want of employment, or who were compelled to keep moving about from place to place when their husbands were seeking employment, would have no vote at all, while rich ladies who own property could have as many as sixty votes – a vote for every electorate in the colony, providing of course they have property in each electorate.

Mrs. Moginie, a lady who has repeatedly declared in favour of One Women One Vote, but who appears to be too much afraid of losing the support of the wealthy in her efforts to secure a recognition of the rights of women, moved an amendment, “ That the object of this Association shall be to secure to every adult women the right of franchise.” Mrs. Beverly seconded this amendment, which was carried and became the motion. Mrs. Miller, a sturdy radical whose father took a prominent part in the Chartist Movement of 1848 (one of the grandest working class agitations of the century), detected in Mrs. Moginie's amendment an endeavour to shirk the question of One Women One Vote, and moved an amendment to settle the matter. “ She objected to a man who had a large block of land dividing the same amongst his sisters and daughters, and so get four or five additional votes. They did not ask for anything unfair. All women were equal; they wanted One Women One Vote and not three or four a piece for some women.” Mrs. Fairman seconded Mrs. Miller's amendment. Mrs. Cooper (the chairwoman), who, we venture to say as delicately as possible, is not the lady to pour oil on troubled waters when her party is in difficulties endeavoured to diminish the enthusiasm engendered by Mrs. Miller's speech by arguing that only 20,000 out of 80,000 Queensland women would be entitled to vote on a property qualification.

She reiterated her Wednesday night statement that the Labour Party had never advanced women suffrage, and supplemented this with the remark that only lately had the WORKER commenced to ask for One Women One Vote – statements which are quite incorrect, as anyone who knows the Labour movement, or has read the WORKER, must be aware. It is true that the electoral plank in the Labour platform was, in deference of the wishes of the middle-class moderate party, allowed to go One Man One Vote, but that the Labour Party has abandoned its original plank One Adult One Vote. It is only a further proof that if Mrs. Moginie and other ladies are in earnest they should ask now for One Women One Vote, for we are no near electoral reform than if we had refused to compromise with the middle class during the last elections.

Mrs. MacFie elicited rapturous applause by her eloquent defence of the one-women-one-vote principle. “She believed in one women one vote. The men had not got one man one vote yet, but why should women think of what men had not got? If women wanted a thing, let them stand to their guns and fight for it till they got it. (Applause) Many poor women were slaving from morning till night trying to make ends meet, and while the electoral laws were constituted as they were at present, with the complicated procedure that had to be gone through in order to get a vote, a good many women so situated would not be able to get a vote. They were too poor to pay servants to mind their children. They were not like some women who had nothing to do but to wash themselves – (applause and dissent) – and dress themselves – (applause and dissent) – and then take afternoon tea and talk scandal. ( Loud applause.)

Mrs. Briggs followed Mrs. MacFie, and made a calm, cool, elocutionary address which made quite an impression. “She objected to the property vote, and claimed that to ask for anything else in the face of the altered name of the association would be absurd. It was true men had not obtained equal voting power, but that was not their fault. If they had had justice, they would have obtain edit long ago. Anyway, the women were willing to help the men to obtain justice. She concluded by appealing to the property vote women not to ask for more votes than their sisters who had no property.”

And so the meeting continued. The Social-Democrats had plenty of oratorical power, but the Property Vote Party managed to put forward speakers who endeavoured, however unsuccessfully to answer the arguments of the one-women-vote ladies. Mrs. John A. Clark showed herself to be on the side of the Fat Man's party. Mr. Clark, who early in the meeting had taken a prominent part in the affair by prompting his lady friends on the Fat Man's side of the house, now objected to the Labour agitators advising their wives, sisters, and friends; and Mrs. Cooper, ever on the alert to assist property voters, suggested that all the men be asked to leave the hall. This suggestion was carried by 52 to 46. The men left immediately. After the objectionable men had been got rid of the property voters wished to take a vote again on the motions already carried. This created considerable excitement, during which the One Women One Vote Party was outwitted by Mrs. Moginie and others, who induced them to allow the resolutions carried to stand, thus abandoning Mrs. Miller's one-women-one-vote amendment.

Contentious matter having thus been disposed of, great progress was made with the rules, and the following officers were elected: Mrs. John Donaldson, president; Mesdames Leontine Cooper Macfie, and Moginie, vice -president; and Mesdames J. A. Clark, Reading, Miller, Culpin, G. King Swanwick, Levy, Addison, A. M. Francis, Shelton, M'Connel, sen., Higgs, Banks, Snell, and Fairman, and Miss Glassey, council; and Mrs. D. R. M'Connel, Treasurer.

However, the battle is not yet ended. The woman friends of Social-Democracy must stand to their guns. The opposing forces will work quietly energetically. Our side must follow their example. Each One Women One Voter must bring another woman friend with her to the next general meeting of the Women's Equal Suffrage Association and frustrate the tactics of the Property Voters, whose aim is to flood the country with petitions in favour of the franchise to women on the basis of that now granted to men, in the hope of the Fat Man that extensively signed petitions of such a character will be taken as an index that the women of Queensland are not in favour of either One Man One vote or One Women One Vote. They must not be afraid of driving the wealthy Property Voters out of the association. These women may be disposed to find the necessary funds for carrying on the work but our experience is that working women and girls and sympathisers with working women and girls are as generous as the Fat Man and his wife. The WORKER pledges the A.L.F. to assist the movement. The bushmen of Queensland have an organisation which can and will distribute and collect petitions in all parts of the colony. There is no need for fear. There is every ground for hope. All that is necessary is that the whole soulled, generous, justice loving women who believe in One Woman One Vote shall be true to themselves, and they must succeed in obtaining the same rights as their New Zealand sisters who, surely, are not more intelligent than the women of Queensland.

It appears the Labour Party, amongst which were three or four members, have been adversely criticised for being present at the last and the previous woman suffrage meeting. Some of even our own workers appear to think we might better have remained away; that we committed “tactical blunders;” and that the agitation would do no good. This all depends on the view taken of the true tactics of the advance guard of the Labour movement. If it were better to allow the cunning , under ground engineering, Fat Man's Party to use their ladies for the purpose of working up an agitation which would strengthen the plural vote of the Fat Man, weaken the forces of Labour, and thus keep the Labour Party out of Parliament – as one of the promoters of the Women's Suffrage Movement in Queensland was incautious enough to acknowledge as the aim of herself and some of her friends – then the Labour agitators and their wives, sisters, and friends should have remained away and allowed the Fat Man and his wife a free hand. But if the experience of Labour is that Labour will never get anything by allowing the Fat Man to pull the strings of all public meetings and so create that public opinion which has such a tremendous influence on the persons who never attend public meetings; if the Labour agitators knew, as they did know, that, although our One-women-one-vote possessed as much brains and ability as their wealthy sisters, they who attended the meeting were likely to be outwitted by the cunning of the Fat Man's organisers who had packed the meeting, and had the order of procedure “cut and dried;” if the Labour agitators have any consideration for the hundreds of poor working women whose household duties make it almost impossible for them to attend a meeting such as that held on Monday night, and whose want of a decent dress makes it even more impossible for them to leave home and meet their fellow women who have the good fortune to be decently attired; then every man who has any influence in the Labour movement had a right to be present and see that the women friends of Social-Democracy obtained fair play.

The hostile press will will accuse us of attempting to disturb a woman's meeting. What of that? The Labour Party has already been accused of nearly all the crimes in the calendar – burning sheds, burning ships, poisoning men, and what not. To say that Labour agitators wished to disturb a woman's meeting is too, too mild to be felt. “It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven” on our well seasoned sensibilities. The man who expects the daily press to applaud the efforts of those who work for the Labour movement is very young. If the Fat Man's press cannot say anything bad and true about the Labour agitators, it will say something bad and untrue. Anyone with a year's connection with Labour agitation must recognise this. Labour must not be led away by the fat Man's orthodox propriety. Orthodox propriety and decorum on Monday and Wednesday nights meant that the Fat Man and his wife should be allowed to conduct everything as he and she desired – without adverse comment or critical question. Orthodox propriety and decorum would indicate that the Rich Women should walk over and spurn their poorer sisters as they have done in the past ever since they (the rich women) managed to partly secure their social emancipation. Out upon your orthodox propriety if it means, as Miss bailey puts it, the granting to some rich ladies two and perhaps ten votes, and depriving some women of any vote at all.

Some good and earnest women folk appear to think it unwise to ask for one woman one vote – that it is time enough to ask for equal voting power when the men abolish the plural vote. But those friends of reform should not forget that it would be better to abandon asking for the franchise unless on the basis of one woman one vote, if the propertied women will – as they undoubtedly will – use their newly acquired power to fight the too soft-hearted women who assist them to obtain the property vote. Again life is too short to be content with reform in such a piecemeal fashion. The women of Queensland are ready for equal voting power. Like the men, they are years ahead of the Government and Opposition sides of the Parliament of this country. The people are always ahead of the Parliament, which is now and has been dominated by wealthy men and wealthy men's puppets who can talk – men who will only give the people the rights they clamour for – men who respect the people only when the people threaten them with political extinction. The WORKER advises Labour reformers to attend every public meeting, and see that the rights of public meeting are not suppressed by a biased chairman, for it is only by such means that the workers and the workers' wives, sisters, and friends will be educated up to a sense of their political and social rights as human beings.     W. G. H.