WOMEN ELECTORS
AN APPEAL FROM LABOUR WOMEN
WE appeal to women to vote Labour at the General Election. We appeal to the women who are the nation's custodians for the welfare of the young. They have a great opportunity and a great responsibility at this moment. By their votes and by their work for Labour they can lift their country from its slough of despond and distress, and can raise it from the dark valleys of despair into the light of freedom and hope.
For the issue before us is in truth one of life and death, prosperity and poverty, health and disease, knowledge and ignorance. Under Liberal and Conservative Governments, and under Governments which have been Coalitions of both, we have suffered the miseries of war, of unemployment, of bad housing, of preventable disease and untimely death, and of wastage of the mental and physical powers of our children.
Four years of the agony of war have been followed by four years of a false peace. Now, at last, women have the opportunity of ending these unhappy times. At the General Election of 1918 we were unaccustomed to the duties of citizenship and to the formation of a sound political judgment. Full of joy that the noise of the guns had been silenced, full of hope that victory had been won in the war to end war, thousands of women voted in the vain hope that the Government which had signed the armistice and which had promised a new world to our people would fulfil its pledges.
Now we know the truth.
Now we know that Labour alone stands for all that women most desire.
THE LABOUR PARTY IS THE WOMAN'S PARTY
Some of you will be asked to vote for women who are standing against Labour and Co-operative members and candidates. You will be told that women are needed, irrespective of party, to represent women in the House of Commons. Do not accept this.
Remember that the Labour Party have given active support to every measure put forward by women or men to better women's position; that the Party fought always for women's suffrage; and that, in addition to these special measures, Labour men and women candidates alike have a programme dealing with all our most important needs. We hope to have Labour women as well as men in Parliament. It is not the sex of the candidates, however, but their principles for which we should vote.
LABOUR DEMANDS -
Peace and co-operation between the nations.
Reduction of all war expenditure.
Provision of work or maintenance for the unemployed.
Healthy homes at reasonable rents.
Active health policy to prevent and cure disease.
Care of the mothers and babies, and provision of pure milk.
Freedom of educational opportunity for every child, rich or poor, from the nursery school to the university.
Protection of all workers against preventable accidents in mines or other work.
Pensions for mothers left with children dependent upon them.
Fair treatment for ex-Service men and their families.
Votes for all men and women of twenty-one.
HEALTH - SECURITY - EDUCATION WITHIN THE REACH OF ALL
It is for these great principles that Labour works.
It is for these great principles that Labour asks your support.
In the name of the millions of men, women, and children living in overcrowded, insanitary dwellings —
Of the 4,000 mothers who die in child-birth every year —
Of the 80,000 babies who die in the first year of life —
Of the 2,500,000 children in our schools with physical or mental defects —
Of the 6,000,000 women and children dependent upon the unemployed —
And of the millions of wives and mothers throughout the world mourning for the men who fought that war might cease —
We ask women to use their rights as voters at the General Election and return a
LABOUR GOVERNMENT TO POWER
Mrs. E. BARTON Miss MARGARET BONDFIELD Dr. MARION PHILLIPS Miss SUSAN LAWRENCE Miss GERTRUDE TUCKWELL Mrs. SIDNEY WEBB Mrs. ARTHUR HENDERSON Mrs. J. R. CLYNES Mrs. HARRISON BELL Dr. ETHEL BENTHAM Miss LLEWELYN DAVIES Mrs. EDWARD PEASE Miss E. PICTON-TURBERVILL Mrs. PHILIP SNOWDEN Mrs. McNAB SHAW Miss JULIA VARLEY Miss MARGARET McMILLAN Mrs. AYRTON GOULD
ELEANOR BARTON
Assistant Secretary of the Women's Co-operative Guild; Co-operative and Labour candidate for King's Norton (Birmingham). FLORENCE H. HARRISON BELL
Member of the Labour Party Executive; member of the Women's Advisory Council of the National Federation of General Workers. ETHEL BENTHAM, M.D., J.P.
Member of the Labour Party Executive; Labour candidate for East Islington.
MARGARET BONDFIELD, J.P.
Member of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress; Secretary of the Women Workers' Section of the General Workers' Union; Labour candidate for Northampton.
M. E. CLYNES
Wife of Mr. J. R. Clynes, M.P., chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
MARGARET LLEWELYN DAVIES
Chairman of the Co-operative Union; founder of the Women's Co-operative Guild.
BARBARA AYRTON GOULD
Labour candidate for North Lambeth.
ELEANOR HENDERSON
Wife of Mr. Arthur Henderson, M.P., secretary of the Labour Party.
A. SUSAN LAWRENCE
Member of the London County Council; Alderman of the Poplar Borough Council; member of the Labour Party Executive; Labour candidate for North East Ham.
MARGARET McMILLAN
Educationalist and founder of school clinics and nursery schools.
MARJORY PEASE, J.P.
Labour candidate for East Surrey.
EDITH PICTON-TURBERVILL
Labour candidate for North Islington.
MARION PHILLIPS, D.Sc. (Econ.), J P.
Chief Woman Officer of the Labour Party.
CLARICE McNAB SHAW
Member of the Scottish Council of the Labour Party.
ETHEL SNOWDEN
GERTRUDE M. TUCKWELL, J.P.
Formerly president of the Women's Trade Union League.
BEATRICE WEBB, Litt.D., J.P.
Part author of "The History of Trade Unionism" and other books; member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws.
JULIA VARLEY
Member of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress.
VOTE LABOUR
Printed by the Caledonian Press Ltd., 74 Swinton Street, Gray's Inn Road, London, W.C.1 : and published by the LABOUR Party, 32, Eccleston Square, London, S.W.1
Reprinted from "The Labour Woman," November, 1922.
