322 



J he Review of Reviews. 



Octobtr I. 130S, 



The Victorian Upper House has 



Victorian Women's .ig.iin disgraced itself. For the 



franchise. fifteenth time it has thrown out the 



Women's Suffrage Bill, in spite of 

 the overwhelming vote cast in its favour in the Lower 

 House. In the last fifteen years this Bill has been 

 passed by the Lower House fifteen times, and it has 

 been rejected just as many limes bv the Upper 

 House. In that time something like 750 votes have 

 been recorded in its favour in the Lower House, 

 against say, jjo. This last number is indefinite, 

 because, for one year, the votes against are not 

 available. This is another striking instance of the 

 absolute inability of the Upper House in Victoria 

 to discern the signs of the times. If the 

 members think that they can for long flout 

 public opinion by passing its behests by in 

 such a contemptuous and graceless fashion, 

 they .ire blind as bats. Xo country w-ill 

 stand it long. Some of these individualistic, hide- 

 bound self-seekers of the L'pper House know full 

 well that a widened franchise would mean the writ- 

 ing of their political doom. Their opposition simplv 

 means the use of political power for the furtherance 

 of personal ends. The last Bill's fate is all the more 

 unreasonable seeing that it provided for woman suf- 

 frage only for the Lower House. It was thought by 

 the promoters that the Council could hardly oppose 

 the Bill when its own Chamber was unaffected, but 

 the partisans of property evidently considered that 

 it would be a step towards its own reform and 

 promptly scotched it. 



The action of the Victorian Legis- 

 A l.itive Council is all the more in- 



Side Effect. explicable as the other States re- 

 cognise the right of women to vote, 

 and the Commonwealth Parliament is elected upon 

 adult suffrage. The narrowness of view adopted by 

 it also becomes all the more apparent from the fact 

 that it would be possible to use the electoral rolls 

 for State election purposes were it not for the block 

 produced by the Council. It is the one barrier to 

 the adoption of common electoral rolls, and the 

 machinery of the Commonwealth electoral depart- 

 ment for State elections. Moreover, it is an insur- 

 mountable barrier. It cannot be got over or through 

 under present circumstances. .\ glance at the re- 

 vised table of franchises in the States and the Fede- 

 ration, which is to be found at the end of the report 

 of the Conference of Commonwealth and States 

 Electoral officers held some months ago, and just 

 recentl) issued in a revised form by the Secretary 

 for Home .-Vffairs, shows that the onlv real obstacle 

 lying in the way of the adoption of common ma- 

 chinery lies in the exclusion of women from the 

 State franchise by Victoria. Queensland, which is 

 very progressive in such matters, is going to make a 

 brave attempt to combine the systems as far as pos- 

 sible, but it is a pity that the whole Commonwealth 

 cannot come under the scheme. What a tremendous 



saving of mone\ would result if it did. It is another 

 illustration of the fact that hide-bound consers-atism 

 in blocking one channel is likely to cause damage in 

 other directions, and it gives additional reason why 

 some of our Upper Houses should be purged of the 

 effete and unprogressive. 



Reform matters in the various States 

 Reform are receiving more or less considera- 



Matteri. tion. In Victoria the Gaming Bill 



is announced. The Licensing Bill 

 is before the House, but its prospects of getting 

 through, that is, as the Goxemment has drawn it 

 up. are somewhat cloudy. So many of the members 

 seem to be stricken with the compensation fever, 

 and are proposing to load the country with chains 

 rather than allow them to lose them by the opeia- 

 tion of a complete Local Option poll without mone- 

 tary compensation. The time limit of ten years, in 

 lieu of compensation, is also looked upon with dis- 

 favour bv the mass of the electors, who feel that 

 Parliament is not carrying out the wishes of the 

 country with regard to this matter. Xew South 

 Wales is determined to put a drastic Anti-Gambling 

 Bill through, which will have the effect of restricting 

 gambling as it effects the everyday life of the com- 

 munity, and it also goes so far as to curb to some 

 extent the evil on the racecourses, while it also 

 proposes to limit the nuinber of races held in a year. 

 Tasmania, in spite of the introduction of a reform 

 element at the last elections, still feels the blight of 

 her social evils. There is little chance of gambling 

 being touched, and the proposed Local Option Bill 

 has been hung up. the mover of it refusing to go on 

 with a Bill which is so vastlv different, nwinc t ' 

 amendments, to the one he introduced. In South 

 .\ustralia some of the districts which won Local 

 Option have lost their victorv through a technicality, 

 but the Price Government can be depended upon t. » 

 introduce legislation to remedy this immediately. In 

 the meantime the battle is waging in Victoria just 

 as merrilv as ever, and both sides of good and evil 

 are straining themselves to the uttermost to win the 

 race which in the long run is bound to result in 

 favour of the good. Xew Zealand is shaking her 

 self together over the gambling evil, which grows 

 and grows in spite of the totalisator — looked upin 

 by the uninitiated as the panacea of the evil, bin 

 known bv those with experience to be one of t! 

 most fertile prodm-t-rs nf the gambling germ know 

 to humanitv. 



The 



.Arr.mgemeiits have been made t 

 RepatriS?ion of ':"^g'" ^f^^*" deportation of Kanak,.- 

 Kanaltas. Irom (jueensiancj. It has been dc 



cided that there shall be exemptions 

 for those who were in .\u.stralia before 1879, those I 

 who through illness and infirmity are unable to get ' 

 a living in their native islands, those who have mar- 

 ried women of other tribes, those married to women 1 

 other than Kanakas, those who are Queensland free- I 



