When the vote was given to the women in our province and all the other Western provinces, I confess that I thought our worst troubles were over.  I see now that they were really beginning.  A second Hindenburg line has been set up, and seems harder to pierce than the first.  It is the line of bitter prejudice!  Some of those who, at the time the vote was given, made eloquent speeches of welcome, declaring their long devotion to the cause of women, are now busily engaged in trying to make it uncomfortably hot for the women who dare to enter the political field.  They are like the employers who furnish seats for their clerks in the stores, yet make it clear that to use them may cost their jobs.

The granting of the franchise to women in western Canada, was brought about easily.  It won, not by political pressure, but on its merits.  There is something about a new country which beats out prejudice, and the pioneer age is not so far removed as to have passed out of memory.  The real men of the West remember gratefully how the women stood by them in the old hard days, taking their full share of the hardships and the sacrifice uncomplainingly.  It was largely this spirit which prompted the action of the legislators of the West.  As Kipling says:—­

  Now and not hereafter, while the breath is in our nostrils,
  Now and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by,
  Let us now remember many honorable women—­
  They who stretched their hands to us, when we were like to die!

There was not any great opposition here in western Canada.  One member did say that, if women ever entered Parliament, he would immediately resign; but the women were not disturbed.  They said that it was just another proof of the purifying effect that the entrance of women into politics would have!  Sitting in Parliament does not seem like such a hard job to those of us who have sat in the Ladies’ Gallery and looked over; there is such unanimity among members of Parliament, such remarkable and unquestioning faith in the soundness of their party’s opinion.  In one of the Parliaments of the West there sat for twelve years an honored member who never once broke the silence of the back benches except to say, “Aye,” when he was told to say, “Aye.”  But on toward the end of the thirteenth year he gave unmistakable signs of life.  A window had been left open behind him, and when the draft blew over him—­he sneezed!  Shortly after, he got up and shut the window!

Looking down upon such tranquil scenes as these there are women who have said in their boastful way that they believe they could do just as well—­with a little practice!

Women who sit in Parliament will do so by sheer merit, for there is still enough prejudice to keep them out if any reason for so doing can be found.  Their greatest contribution, in Parliament and out of it, will be independence of thought.

Women have not the strong party affiliations which men have.  They have no political past, no political promises to keep, no political sins to expiate.  They start fair and with a clean sheet.  Those who make the mistake of falling into old party lines, and of accepting ready-made opinions and prejudices, will make no difference in the political life of the country except to enlarge the voters’ list and increase the expenses of elections.