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Show oo SUFFRAGE !N SCANDINAVIA Women Must Wait at Least Five Years Before Gaining Gain-ing a Vote. Stockholm, Sweden, Nov. 30. Sweden, Swe-den, the only one of the Scandinavian countries in which women do not enjoy en-joy th same right to vote as the men, must at best wait some five years before be-fore complete enfranchisement of its women, but that the goal will ultimately ultimate-ly be reached not only here, but in other "backward" countries, is the firm conviction of the National Swedish Swe-dish Womans' Suffrage association, which has just concluded its annual vention. Reports made at the convention showed a greatly increased Interest in the movement throughout Sweden. There are now nearly 17,000 women enrolled in the association and some 200 branch organizations. Particularly Particular-ly gratifying to the leaders was the report of a great growth of interest among the country's clergymen, as well as among men generally. Men's associations for woman suffrage were l formed during the year at Kristiantsad and Malmo, and some of the best known Swedish men are beginning to Interest themselves actively In the movement. Most of this progress is the work of only fourteen years, although efforts to improve the position of women generally gen-erally were begun at an early period, Sweden standing in the front rank of European countries in this respect. It was not until 1902, however, that a definite organized movement to secure votes for women was begun. The .impetus .im-petus for this was given by a man, Burgomaster C. A. Llndhageu of Stockholm. Stock-holm. Burgomaster Lindhagen, who was also a member of the second chamber of the Riksdag, presented a woman suffrage bill In the lower house. Jt was defeated by 111 to 64. The first notable victory was In 1906 when both chambers of the parliament decided to petition the government to investigate the subject of woman suf frage. This report was submitted -to the Riksdag in 1911. In the meantime (1907) universal franchise had been granted the Swedish men, and the first use they made of it was to elect a liberal government, in which K. A. Staaf was premier. Staaf presented a woman suffrage bill in 1912 as a government gov-ernment bill, and it was supported by the constitutional committee of tho Riksdag. The upper chamber defeated it, S6 to 58, but the lower chamber gave 140 votes for to 66 against. A further unavailing effort was made this year to induce Herr Ham-marskjold, Ham-marskjold, present, to make a government govern-ment measure of the bill. A change of the nature proposed involves an. amendment to the constitution, and hence must be adopted by both houses of two successive parliaments. The Riksdag session early In 1917 will be the last session of the present parliament, parlia-ment, and, although conditions have apparently not altered since the last unsuccessful attempt, the women see themselves compelled to make another effort to secure the passage of a political po-litical equality measure. The bill will probably be presented as" a Social-Democratic Social-Democratic party measure. But even in the unlikely event of Its passage, woman's suffrage could not come into effect in Sweden until the autumn of 1921, so there is still a long fight ahead. At least two of the principal obstacles ob-stacles are the opposition of the men and the fact anomalous as it may seem that women already enjoy the communal franchise. Their possession of the communal franchise obliges women exercising It to be regularly enrolled with their party. The conservatives oppose woman wom-an suffrage. That means that the conservative con-servative women are faced with the cnoice oi ureaitmy away irom ineir party or else of opposing suffrage for themselves, and thus far the party call and, incidentally, their allegiance to the men of their families has proved the stronger. The fact that of all Scandinavian countries, Sweden is the only one where the women do not enjoy the same right of franchise as the men, is due to a variety of causes. Tho Finnish women secured the vote mainly main-ly as a result of the important part they took in their country's struggles for liberty more than a decade ago. Their enfranchisement came in 1906. The Norwegian women took an active part in the events leading up to the separation of Norway and Sweden. When they were- denied participation in the referendum held at that time they conducted a referendum of their own. Another factor throwing light on the situation in the Scandinavian countries coun-tries is that hero along in the world is literature uniquely-and closely as-i as-i sociated with the woman's movement. But while Bjornson and Ibsen in Norway Nor-way and Grundtvig and other prominent promi-nent literary characters in Denmark championed the cause of women, Strindburg, Sweden's foremost literary light and the man who has more powerfully pow-erfully influenced his countrymen than has any other writer, was an embittered embitter-ed misogynist, hating woman and all her works. "Woman suffragists declare de-clare that Strindberg's writings have been one of the most powerful weapons weap-ons in the hands of their opponents. Miss SIgne Bergman, president of the National Woman Suffrage association, associa-tion, belleveB that the world . war will have a great Influence toward equal suffrager ights. "Ever since the woman suffrage movement started," she said, "one of the chief arguments against it has been the assertion that women were incapable of defending their country. But In all the belligerent countries wc see the women doing jvar work which Is hardly, if at all, less important than tho actual fighting. It is not conceivable conceiv-able that the war could have been carried car-ried on so long without woman's help, and It is difficult to see how the opponents op-ponents of woman suffrage can refute the logic of this fact." |