Women Who Rule.

Imagine, if you can, life in the thirteenth century in England. The green countryside was dotted with castles, each a small principality, owing allegiance only to the King. When the King's business called, or the seigneur went crusading, the mistress of the castle was left in charge, to defend it against hostile neighbours and to rule the affairs of her petty kingdom with its army of retainers—men-at-arms, house carles, yeomen; to settle disputes, to oversee the husbandry, the tilling of the fields and the care of the animals, as well as to attend to the usual duties of a housewife, which in those days included the spinning of yarn and weaving of cloth for the household.

Not less onerous were the duties of the lady abbess of a wealthy nunnery. Often there were squabbles between the church and the neighbouring castle as to ownership of land, payment of dues, or allocation of peasant labour. The abbess not only directed the spiritual and temporal affairs of the sisterhood, but watched over the village clustered at the doors of the nunnery and zealously guarded the worldly rights of Holy Church. Inevitably, little time was left for the calm contemplation of the infinite and for spiritual converse with the Creator. Disputes as to fishing rights, or questions of tillage of church lands, occupied the woman of affairs.

In the matter of politics, women through the centuries have had an undefined but recognised place behind the scenes, not only in the matter page 56 of obtaining favours from those in power by means of physical attractiveness, but in a real advisory capacity.

To-day, very few committees are considered complete without women members. A tennis club or dramatic society run entirely by men would be decidedly unusual. In the matter of social service women render invaluable aid. Women have been elected to hospital boards, to the governing bodies of colleges, and even to City Councils. In each case the value of their co-operation has been recognised.

Now New Zealand, after many years of female suffrage, has come abreast of other nations by electing a woman to Parliament. We have seen how successfully English women have tackled political life. There was even a woman member of the late Labour Cabinet—Miss Margaret Bondfield, Minister of Labour. The argument that women cannot help in the government of a country and at the same time pay the requisite attention to home-life and the rearing of a family has been confounded by Lady Astor, who has done both successfully.

Of course, all women are not capable of governing. There are always those who are happier as sisters in the nunnery or wives in the village, and have no desire for the lot of chatelaine or abbess. The same may also be said of men. Even among those who aspire to political honours are some whose roads lie in humbler places.

Anyone who has studied the way of a capable woman in the home, knows that her commonsense, her driving power, her ability to find solutions to problems that arise, her scorn of dilatoriness and time-wasting talk, will prove, translated to the House of Representatives, immensely valuable to the country.

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