WOMEN AND HEALTH AUTHORITIES.
LTO TRW EDITOR OP TER " ISPEOTATOR."1
Sta,—As there will this year be no elections to Town Councils and Metropolitan Borough Councils on November 1st, most of the Councils now reassembling after the summer holidays will shortly be filling casual vacancies, as provided by the National Registration and Elections Act.
May we through your paper recall to the public mind the foot that legislation last year greatly widened the field of selection of men and women for service on Town and County Councils, by admitting non-electors with a "residential qualification" of twelve months' residence within the electoral area ? This long. desired reform (familiar in relation to other local government bodies) renders practically available the services of married women, and of other women living at home with relations, as
completely as such services are available for the administration of the Poor Law.
We would beg attention to the great advantage that it would be to the nation to secure the co-operation on every Public Health Authority of two or more women of judgment and experience. Every year brings now enactments that strengthen the argument; e.g., health authorities have now been empowered to establish Maternity and Infant Welfare Centres, and for these it is certain that the supervision of women is required.
There are men who in the past have urged the peculiar appropriateness of co-option as a method for placing on public bodies the most wisely selected women. Others have thought differently, but in this year all must desire that the method in question shall be widely utilized for the purpose. That rests with the members of the Councils, since they alone can nominate and they alone elect. But the representatives of a ward in which a vacancy occurs are accessible, and so are their fellow-Councillors. One or more may be glad to have suggested to them the nomination of some suitable woman whose election would reflect credit on the Council.—I am, Sir, &c.,
ANNIE LEIGH BROWNE,
Hon. Secretary Women's Local Government Society, 19 Tothill Street, Westminster.
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