no property qualification whatever is required of either candidates or electors. The qualifications of a member of the Council are that he must be thirty years of age, and a natural-born or naturalised subject of the Queen, and that he must have been a resident of the district which he represents at least three years. Electors must have a freehold of £50 value, or a leasehold of £20 annual value. The Council has not the weight nor influence of the unpaid Upper House of Western Australia, nor of that of Victoria.
For the Assembly no man has more than one vote, and every man twenty-one years of age who has been for six months on the roll is allowed the privilege. Three years ago the franchise was granted to women, and they now stand on exactly the same footing as men with regard to voting for members of either House. Not overlooking the fact that with regard to the exercise of political functions married women are at times placed under a disability, the Act with great and tender foresight provided another method of recording the votes of those who are from physical causes unable to go to the poll. The high hopes entertained by some as to the purifying effect upon politics of the women's vote, and the fears entertained by others as to evils attendant on its exercise, have in neither case been realised. Women have voted at one election, and the result was that no change at all could be attributed to the effect of their vote. They went to the poll in large numbers, attracted no doubt by the novelty of the privilege, but the result was such as would have been anticipated had men alone voted.
The members, in Adelaide as in the neighbouring colonies, do a great deal of talking for their £300, or thereabouts, a year; though there has not been, so far, fortunately, very much for them to talk about. However, each community has made courageous efforts to tackle
