rs been a member of the school board of London,
sitting for one of the great divisions called Hackney, which has
60,000 voters. My election committee was composed of men and
women. Men worked for me very hard indeed!... The next great
local governing bodies are the boards of guardians of the poor.
These bodies spend annually about $127,000,000, which they raise
from the taxpayers, men and women. These are huge organizations.
Many of the workhouses contain over 1,000 persons; besides which,
outside relief in money or food or medical aid is given. Every
woman who is a taxpayer can vote for a member of these boards.
Women are eligible to sit on them the same as men. There are
nearly 1,000 women on the boards.

Women may vote for the municipalities, for the town councils. I
can not offer you any illustration of how the women's vote has
improved them for the simple reason that when those councils were
instituted in 1869 the Parliament of a monarchy was sufficiently
large-minded to perceive that women ought to vote for them; that
they have to pay their taxes and where a woman stands at the head
of a household she is not only equally entitled to representation
in regard to the spending of her money but also she is as much
concerned with the work that the councils have to do as any man.
This was so obviously just that women were given the right to
vote on them and have exercised that right ever since.... The
women vote as fully as the men do.

We have district, parish and county councils, which have to a
considerable extent the moral and the intellectual government of
the cities under them, licensing of places of amusement, public
parks, technical education for young people over school age and
so on. The building of homes for the poor, the oversight of
lunatic asylums and matters of that kind, they have under their
authority. These were established in 1884 and the women who had
voted so well for many years for school boards and town councils
of course were given the right to vote for the new county
councils.

Mrs. Miller went fully into the work of women on borough and county
councils and closed her valuable address by saying: "Gentlemen, the
work of women in English public life has not only been unattended with
any mischief but has been a great force for service