e
woman suffrage cause." It was the first Local Council in Canada to
endorse this cause and later held two public meetings in its interest.
In 1910 extensive work was done to regain the Municipal franchise. In
1911 nine important amendments to the very reprehensible laws
concerning women and children were submitted to the Legislature by the
Council through the Attorney General and one was passed. In the autumn
the Political Equality Club was re-organized in Victoria, Mrs. Gordon
Grant, president, and in December at a Provincial Conference in
Vancouver she assisted in organizing one there; Mrs. Lashley Hall,
president--later Mrs. C. Townley--and Miss Lily Laverock, secretary.
The two societies organized a large deputation to wait upon the
Attorney General and solicit better property laws for women, equal
guardianship of children for mothers, the right taken away from
fathers to dispose of their guardianship by will and other equally
needed laws. They also memorialized the Legislature for the full
Provincial suffrage for women. On Feb. 15, 1913, fifty women in the
Province presented a petition of 10,000 names to the Premier, asking
that suffrage on equal terms with men be given to women and on the
19th he answered that as a matter of Government policy it was
impossible.

The agitation increased and continued until the full enfranchisement
of women in the three great Provinces to the east brought the
question to a climax. Even then, however, it was not allowed to be
settled by the Legislature, as it had been in those Provinces, but on
April 14, 1916, Premier Bowser stated that the Elections Act, which
provided for allowing a vote to soldiers over 18, would include women
and would be submitted to a referendum of the electors. This was done
by the Legislature, which met May 31, and the election took place
September 15. The amendment was carried by an immense majority in
every district, about two to one, and later this was increased by the
large favorable majority of the absent soldiers, who were entitled to
vote. It went into effect March 1, 1917. The area of Canadian
territory in which women were now enfranchised extended from Ontario
to the Pacific Ocean. In 1919 Mrs. Ralph Smith, widow of the Minister
of Finance, was elected to the Legislature and in 1921 she was made
Speaker, the first instance on record.

The struggle for woman suffrage in Canada was now centered in the
Province of Ontario, where it began in 1883, an