Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/769

 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN BRITISH COLONIES 753 frage in Tasmania and Queensland in 1905, Victoria in 1908. South Australia was the only one that gave the right to sit in the Legislature with the State suffrage. This eligibility was not con- ferred until 1919 in New South Wales and Victoria; 1920 in West Australia and does not yet exist in Tasmania and Queens- land. One must be a property owner to be a municipal voter or office holder. Australia has largely substituted advanced legislation for women for the English Common Lawy/The statistics relating to the voting of women follow closely those of New Zealand. There never has been a proposal to take away the political privileges of women, which could be done by an Act of Parliament. On the contrary during the years when the contest for woman suffrage was being carried on in Great Britain its Parliament was more than once urged by that of Australia to grant it. In 1917, when the struggle was at its height, the strongest possible memorial was adopted by the National Parliament of Australia, which said : Appreciating the blessings of self-government in Australia through adult suffrage, and appreciating the desire of Your Majesty's Government to vindicate the claims of the small nations to self- rnment, we are confident that Your Majesty will recognize the e of the same claim in the case of the small nation of women in Your Majt-sty's kingdom women who, in this great crisis in the ris- "f the I British Kmpire . . . have proved themselves as worthy soldiers as those on the battlefield, and as worthy of the protection of the ballot, which is conceded to men. . . . We are deeply interested in the welfare of the women of the Kmpire and we again humbly pe- tition Your Majesty to endow them with that right of self-govern ment for which they have petitioned for nearly three-quarters of a century. The most prominent statesmen of Australia and New Zealand in their visits to Great Britain, Canada and the United States have given testimony as to the benefits of woman suffrage. DOMINION OF CANADA. When Volume IV of this History was written in igoo four pages sufficed for an account of woman <> in Canada. It confipfd to a Municipal or School franchise or l.oth in the S for widows and <pinskTs, and in some of them married women were included. This privilege began in Ontario in 1884