Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/783

 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN BRITISH! COLONIES 767 They obtained an interview with him at which he treated them very discourteously and denied all responsibility for the bill after its second reading. They could get no satisfaction from any member of the Government. The bill was not reported from the committee for weeks and when at last brought before the House in August it was turned over to a Select Committee of five, three of them pronounced anti-suffragists, and was not heard of again. SOUTH AFRICA. At the present time South Africa ha the distinction of being - ' the only English-speaking nation that has not enfranchised its women. There seems to have been some agitation for a vote by the Boer women in early days but a "movement" for it was definitely begun in 1895, when at the annual conference of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Cape Colony at Kim- berley, woman suffrage was made one of their official departments of work. In 1902 a Woman's Enfranchisement League was formed in Durban, Natal, and in a few years one in Cape Town, Cape Colony, followed by others in seven or eight towns. In 1904 M. L. Neithling moved in the Legislative Council of Cape Colony a resolution to enfranchise widows and spinsters with the required property and educational qualifications, which was dis- cussed but not voted on. In 1907 Dr. Viljoen presented one to extend the suffrage to women on the same terms as to men. The division showed 24 in favor of it, twelve from each party. In 1909 the Enfranchisement Leagues of Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria united in sending four delegates to ilic International Woman Suffrage Alliance meeting in Ix)ndon. Tins year representatives of Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal and Kree State met in a national convention to prepare a constitution for the Union of South Africa and the suffrage leagues sent a numerously signed petition asking that it include the franchise of women. This was rejected and they were told to "await a more convenient season." The women were much aroused and early in KJIO the Women's Citizen Club of Cape Town and the Women's Reform Club of Johannesburg were formed. In the summer of 1911 Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt,