gnatures. This
petition was presented February 6, 1907.

In 1906 and 1907 the Labor party and the Liberal party inserted woman's
suffrage into their platforms and presented bills favoring the measure.
Twice (in 1907 and 1908) Parliament rejected the clause providing for
woman's suffrage. On February 13, 1909, the Swedish males were granted
universal suffrage (active and passive) in national elections; at the same
time Parliament tried to appease the women by granting them the passive
suffrage in municipal elections. In the spring of 1909 the bill concerning
woman's right to vote in national elections (Staaf Bill) was accepted by
the Constitutional Commission by a vote of 11 to 9; the Lower House also
accepted it, but it was rejected by the Upper House.

The political successes of the Norwegian women have a stimulating effect
on Sweden.

Prohibition has influential advocates in Sweden, and supporters in
Parliament. At the request of the Swedish women's clubs, police matrons
were appointed to cooperate with the police regulating prostitution in
Stockholm, Helsingborg, Trelleborg, and Malmoe. At the present time a
commission is considering future plans for police regulation of
prostitution in Sweden.

In Sweden, where there are about half a million organized adherents to
the cause of temperance, there are 77 daily papers that consistently print
matter pertaining to temperance. Not only these 77 papers, most of whose
editors are Good Templars, but at least 13 other dailies refuse all
advertisements of alcoholic liquors.[60] In Norway, where similar
conditions prevail, there are a quarter of a million temperance advocates,
and about 40 daily papers that favor the cause.

FINLAND

Total population: 2,712,562.
Women: 1,370,480.
Men: 1,342,082.

No league of Finnish women's clubs.
No woman's suffrage league.

The discussion of the Finnish woman's rights movement will follow that of
Sweden, for Finland was till 1809 politically a part of Sweden; the
cultural tie still exists.

In Finland also, the woman's rights movement is of literary
origin,--Adelaide Enrooth and Frederika Runeburg preached the gospel of
woman's emancipation to an intellectual elite. Through the influence of
Bjoernson, Ibsen, and Strindberg the discussion of the "social lie"
(_Gesellschaftsluege_) became general. In the eighties of the last
century, the ideas and criticisms were turned into deeds and reforms.
A