"Parliament was opened to-day. Lord Islington, the Governor, in his speech, congratulated the Dominion on its continued prosperity. The increase in the material well-being of the people, was, he said, encouraging, and there was every reason to expect a continuance and even an augmentation of the prosperity of the trade and industry of the Dominion.... The results of registration under the universal defence training scheme were satisfactory. The spirit in which this call for patriotism had been met was highly commendable." The testimony concerning the practical working of women's suffrage in Australia and New Zealand is all of one kind. It may be summarised in a single sentence, "Not one of the evils so confidently predicted of it has actually happened." The effect on home life is universally said to have been good. The birth-rate in New Zealand has steadily increased since 1899, and it has now, next to Australia, the lowest infantile mortality in the world. In South Australia, where women have been enfranchised since 1893, the infantile death-rate has also been reduced from 130 in the 1000 to half that number. Our own anti-suffragists are quite capable of representing that this argument means that we are so foolish as to suppose that if a mother drops a paper into a ballot-box every few years she thereby prolongs the life of her infant. Of course we do nothing of the kind; but we do say that to give full citizenship to women deepens in them the sense of responsibility, and they will be more likely to apply to their duties a quickened intelligence and a higher sense of the importance of the work entrusted to them as women. The free woman makes the best wife and the most careful mother. The confident prediction that women when enfranchised would not take the trouble to record their votes has been falsified. The figures given in the official publication, _The New Zealand Year Book_, are as follows:-- +-------+---------------------------------------------+ | | Men. Women. | + +-----------+----------+-----------+----------+ | Date. | Electoral | Actually | Electoral | Actually | | | Roll. | Voted. | Roll. | Voted. | +-------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+ | 1893 | 193,536 | 129,792 | 109,461 | 90,290 | | 1896 | 196,925 | 149,471 | 142,305 | 108,783 | | 1899 | 210,529 | 159,780 | 163,215 | 119,550 | | 1902 | 229,845 | 180,294 | 185,944 | 138,565 | | 1905 | 263,597 | 221,611 | 212,876 | 175,046 | | 1908 | 294,073 | 238,538 | 242,930 | 190,114 | +-------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+