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REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



four times, and five elections have taken 

 place. The Diet has been obliged to use 

 much valuable time during its short 

 sessions for the defence of the consti- 

 tutional rights of the people, on which 

 all parties in Finland are unanimous. 

 Many of the Bills passed by the Diet 

 have not been sanctioned or have been 

 set aside. In fact, the present Russo- 

 Finnish conflict has paralysed all sound 



development in the countr\ . All this is 

 to be considered when estimating the 

 work of the Diet as well as that of its 

 women members. The most important 

 effect of the introduction of universal 

 suffrage is, however, that all classes of 

 the people, men and women, now per- 

 fectly realise that the welfare of the 

 nation depends, in the first place, upon 

 the maintenance of its self-government. 



II.-BY MISS EDITH SELLERS. 



A very different account of the re- 

 sults of female suffrage in the land of 

 the Finns is given by Miss Sellers in 

 the Nineteenth Century and Aft^. 

 Miss Sellers, who lived for ten )ears in 

 Finland, has been residmg recently in 

 her native England, but went specially 

 to Helsingiors not long ago to see how 

 female suffrage was affecting the Fin- 

 nish people. She has returned much 

 disappointed and disillusioned ; the 

 right to vote she thinks has added little 

 or nothing to the happiness and con- 

 tentment, not to mention usefulness of 

 women in Finland. In fact, she con- 

 siders that they are rather the worse for 

 having this privilege, and says that 

 there is no doubt about politically- 

 minded wives and mothers neglecting 

 their households and babies rather 

 shamefully. She declares that the sec- 

 tion of the Diet which comprises women 

 is of a heterogeneous character, and 

 includes those who have lived in domes- 

 tic service. Indeed, the servants in a 

 house nowada)'s hold their heads higher 

 than their mistresses, and refuse to cook 

 or serve a dinner if they can get a 

 chance of attending a public meeting 

 for the purpose of either listening or 

 speaking. 



SWEET REASONABLENESS LOST. 



According to the men and women 

 amongst whom Miss Sellers made en- 

 quiries, and according, too, to her own 

 observation, since female suffrage came 

 into force a fairly large section of town- 

 dwelling Finnish women have lost con- 

 siderable in what one might, perhaps, 

 call " sweet reasonableness." They are 

 now so keenly alive to their own rights 

 that they are apt to forget that other 



folk have rights, and that they them- 

 selves have duties. The}- have lost in 

 balance, too ; politics are for them now 

 the be-all and end-all of life ; they 

 have not a thought in their heads for 

 any other subject, excepting perhaps 

 feminism. They seem never quite happy 

 unless at a public meeting, listening to 

 political discourses, or, better still, de- 

 livering them. No political question is 

 too complex for them to deal with in 

 their present frame of mind ; they will 

 produce at a moment's notice solutions 

 for problems which have baffled states- 

 men for \ears ; and will start off on lec- 

 turing tours at the slightest provoca- 

 tion. They are much more eager to be 

 out in the world than in their own 

 houses ; home-life, indeed, has lost all 

 attraction for them. 



BABIES AT A DISCOUNT. 



They would rather work the whole 

 day in an office than spend a couple of 

 hours setting their own houses in order. 

 Some of them go so far as to hold that 

 it better befits them, as full-blown citi- 

 zens, to issue railway tickets, or sort 

 letters, than to tend their own babies. 

 Babies, indeed, are rather at a discount 

 among them in this our day. The 

 opinion is gaining ground rapidly that, 

 when once they are born, it is for the 

 State to look after them, not their own 

 mothers. . . . There is no outside 

 work they will not do, and for starva- 

 tion wages — nay, for no wages at all — • 

 even though they themselves be half- 

 starved. They are practically never at 

 rest ; early and late they are on the go, 

 to the detriment, of course, of their 

 nerves, and through them of their health 

 and much besides. 



