Pages 123 to 126 Women Opposing WW1 PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE
WOMEN’S POLITICAL ASSOCIATION 1918
WPA - Press, Pulpit and Purse - Referendum Results
Woman Voter 17 January 1918:
Conscription Referendum - The voting on the Conscription Referendum was declared on the 10th inst., ...
It is interesting to note that, so far as the votes have been counted, the “Yes” vote has decreased by 74,196 compared with that recorded in 1916, while the “No” vote has increased by 18,223 votes ...
Large as is the majority against conscription, it is not nearly so large as it would have been had the Government not resorted to such devious ways of preventing the “No” citizens from voting - the sudden closing of the rolls, the disenfranchisement of Australian-born citizens whose father was German-born, the holding of the referendum on a full working day instead of the half-day, Saturday, which is also the statutory day for holding elections and referenda, the tricky form of the question. Faced with such serious disadvantages, and with the seemingly colossal power of “Press, Pulpit and Purse” against the anti-conscriptionists, the wonder is that conscription did not win.
Woman Voter 17 January 1918:
The Women’s Peace Army held a fine rally at the Yarra Bank the Sunday following the Referendum ...
The following resolution was carried unanimously - That this mass meeting expresses deep gratitude for the result of the Conscription Referendum. Believing that a great victory means a great responsibility, the Australian Women’s Peace Army calls upon Australian citizens to demand that negotiations for a Constructive Peace that will sow no seeds of bitterness and revenge be begun immediately, and to ask that the Peace Conference shall consent to an International Agreement being signed to permit Australia to develop as an Unarmed Nation, settling its national and international difficulties by negotiation instead of conflict.
WPA - The “Shirker” Class
Woman Voter 17 January 1918:
The “Shirker” Class - The “Age”, in its Ambrosial Prattle, refers frequently to the “shirker class”. Which is the “shirker class”?
The “working class”? Certainly not, with its huge percentage of volunteers, out of all proportion to the contribution by any other class to the European holocaust.
The “Age” Prattle must have reference to the “last shilling” class, which has not yet had the “opportunity”, as Sir William Irvine would say, “of combing out” either superfluous members of superfluous shillings.
WPA - It is with Great Regret
Woman Voter 6 June 1918:
It is with great regret we have to announce that after this issue the ‘Woman Voter’ will be published fortnightly until - when? That is for our subscribers and readers to decide.
WPA - WPA Protest against Profiteering
Woman Voter 20 June 1918:
At a meeting of the WPA held on the 10th inst., addressed by Mr Howey of the Consumers’ League... the following resolution was carried unanimously -
That this meeting resolves to ask the Acting Prime Minister to receive a deputation of women, who will give him concrete evidence of the heavy burden being placed on the workers of Australia, especially on the women workers, by the prevailing profiteering in food and other household commodities.
Mr Howey said the profiteering question had become a great national question; it concerned the social, every-day life of the community, for it affected everyone who had a fixed wage. Profiteers taunted the workers with being disloyal, and asked why recruits were not forthcoming.
The profiteers were the disloyalists, and no more recruits would be forthcoming as long as the profiteers persisted in their disloyal actions.
Woman Voter 20 June 1918:
Women in the Presbyterian Church - The General Assembly of the Vic. Presbyterian Church has at last officially admitted the existence of women - except as a “bazaarist” - by decreeing that women shall have the church franchise, right of election to church bodies, and association with church sessions - for consultative purposes only!
WPA - President Wilson’s Speech
Woman Voter 10 October 1918:
Though no one will agree with all he has to say, the speech of President Wilson in New York on 27th ult. is of immense importance in making clear to the Allies America’s irreducible minimum in the way of peace terms, and in proving to the world that he has statesmanlike qualities of vision that have been sadly lacking in Governments during the past decade, qualities that enable him to see that those who created the war, and accepted the war, are having it completely taken out of their hands by the people, who, having had to bear the full burden of fighting the war, and who will have to bear the full burden of paying for it, are determined that they alone shall decide the basic principles of a constructive peace.
Woman Voter 10 October 1918:
The WPA has received an invitation from the Returned Soldiers National Party to send two delegates to a conference to consider after-the-war problems.
WPA - The Dawn of Peace
Woman Voter 7 November 1918:
Peace is dawning more brightly day by day, but the greatest mental alertness is required to distinguish even dimly between the true and the false propositions for a constructive peace. The false clamours so loudly that the still, small voice of Truth and Justice is apt to be unheard or unheeded, and the only certain outcome of peace discussions will be an outcome that those who accepted the war did not foresee, and do not want. Man proposes, but a higher power disposes - and the world wonders why its schemes fail.
May we venture to prophesy? Democracy, of a kind, will triumph, but it will be of such a form that those who called most loudly for democracy will prefer before it the autocracy they seek, and seek rightly, to dethrone. We use the word “rightly” to designate the aim of their endeavours, not the method. Because the method was wrong, though they knew none better, they will not reap what they expected to reap. The belligerents, one and all, have believed in Might, rather than in Right; therefore, they have failed. To them, the 6th Commandment was an unobeyable Commandment - for nations.
They have not glimpsed the fact that its demands are as exact, as inexorable, as the demands of mathematics. Thou shalt make two and two four. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image that sayeth two and two are five; if thou wouldst get the correct answer to thy problems, thou shalt know that two and two are four.
So, if we would solve the problems that arise between nations, we must obey the Commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are “the way” for nations, as for individuals.
Therefore, walk ye in it, Bolsheviks as well as Capitalists - or else, Failure.
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