regulation of
prostitution was introduced into Italy by Mrs. Butler. A congress in favor
of abolition was held in 1898 in Genoa. Recently, thanks to the efforts of
Dr. Agnes MacLaren and Miss Buchner, the movement has been revived, and
urged upon the Catholic clergy. The Italian branch of the International
Federation for the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prostitution
was founded in 1908. In the same year was held in Rome the successful
Congress of the Federation of Women's Clubs. This Congress, representing
the nobility, the middle class, and workingwomen, brought the woman's
suffrage question to the attention of the public. A number of woman's
suffrage societies had been organized previously, in Rome as well as in
the provinces. They formed the National Woman's Suffrage League, which, in
1906, joined the International Woman's Suffrage Alliance. Through the
discussions in the women's clubs, woman's suffrage became a topic of
public interest. The Amsterdam Report [of the Congress of the
International Woman's Suffrage Alliance] says: "The women of the
aristocracy wish to vote because they are intelligent; they feel
humiliated because their coachman or chauffeur is able to vote. The
workingwomen demand the right to vote, that they may improve their
conditions of labor and be able to support their children better." A
parliamentary commission for the consideration of woman's suffrage was
established in 1908. In the meantime the existence of this commission
enables the President of the Ministry to dispose of the various proposed
measures with the explanation that such matters will not be considered
_until the commission has expressed itself on the whole question_. Women
have active and passive suffrage for the arbitration courts for labor
disputes.

SPAIN[94]

Total population: 18,813,493.
Women: 9,558,896.
Men: 9,272,597.

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

Whoever has traveled in Spain knows that it is a country still living, as
it were, in the seventeenth century,--nay in the Middle Ages. The fact has
manifold consequences for woman. In all cases progress is hindered. Woman
is under the yoke of the priesthood, and of a Catholicism generally
bigoted. The Church teaches woman that she is regarded as the cause of
carnal desire and of the fall of man. By law, woman is under the
guardianship of man. Custom forbids the "respectable" woman to walk on