Page:Women Wanted.djvu/335

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AT THE GATES OF GOVERNMENT
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for the picking. I water the tree," she adds significantly.

Holland has seen in The Hague 4,000 women assembled in the Binnehof, the public square before the House of Parliament. On their behalf, Dr. Aletta Jacobs, president of the Vereenigingvoor Vronwenkeisrecht, presented to Premier Cort Van der Linden a petition with 164,696 signatures, asking for citizenship for women. "Society," Dr. Jacobs told him, "can only gain when the forces and energy of its women, now concentrated on the struggle for the vote, can be used along with men's in finding a solution for the many social problems for which the insight of both is necessary." And the Dutch Parliament, making over its Constitution to enlarge the franchise for men, decided on the amazing plan about women, "We will try them first, as members of Parliament. And if we find they can make the laws, afterward we shall let them vote for law makers." So the new Dutch constitution gives to women the "passive" franchise, which is the right to hold all administrative offices, including representation in Parliament. There is also removed an old prohibitory clause, so that the way is now clear for the introduction of a measure for the "active" franchise for women—if it is found the dinner doesn't burn while they are sitting in Parliament.

A South African Party Congress, for the first time it has ever listened to women, has received a delegation who urge: "Half the population of the country is composed of women. Can you any longer