Ever since the Lebanese Women's League founded the magazine "The Woman's Voice," the demands for these rights have gone forward; month after month it has published all manner of guiding articles, to prepare public opinion first, and then to demand of the official authorities that these rights be placed within the sphere of legal study.

Then "the Executive Committee for the Demand of Women's Rights" was formed — a noble circle of wise ladies who believe in reaching the right without rashness and without agitation. They knocked at the houses by their doors, and did not cease until they obtained from the Council of Ministers what counts by right as "the first positive official step": the Prime Minister, Mr. Abdullah al-Yafi, declared his complete

desire for the equality of woman with man, drew up with the Council of Ministers the text of the bill, and referred it to the Administration and Justice Committee of the parliamentary assembly, which approved the bill by seven votes against four.

At the same time the woman of letters Mrs. Salma Sayegh — one of the family of "The Woman's Voice" — had undertaken a far-reaching poll: she polled ministers, presidents of high courts, judges, heads of departments, lawyers and men of letters, and published these opinions in this magazine beginning in the month of June 1950.

And for the record — for the record and nothing else — "The Woman's Voice" presents a review of this poll, thanking the champions of woman's cause and appreciating the sincerity of those who will concede this right only by stages. As for those who want woman nowhere but in the kitchen — or in the salon — it wishes them God's pardon and His beneficence...

At Mr. Rashad Azar's

Since the bill had come out victorious from the Administration and Justice Committee, and among the members of that committee were a number of adversaries, Deputy Mr. Rashad Azar — one of the four honorable gentlemen who opposed the bill — was asked to defend his hostile stand toward woman... He was told:

Q — And why do you want to squeeze yourself onto the list of our enemies?

A — I have never been and shall never be an enemy of woman, and I wonder at your putting this question to me, when you know my inner heart better than anyone.

Q — But your vote against woman in the Administration and Justice Committee contradicts what is in that... limpid... inner heart. Speak frankly. You are a deputy for the South, and you are an intimate, lifelong friend of a great leader who in every election still commands the crushing majority. Now, since you will remain faithful to this friend, giving women the right to vote will assuredly answer you with the votes of all the sisters and mothers and daughters and kinswomen of your great friend. Why then do you take this stand — the stand of enmity toward the women who will be your electors in the next term?

A — First of all, voting against the bill to give woman her right does not mean that I am her enemy. As to the second part of what you say, I reply that I am not hunting here for my personal interest. I say — and I shall be grateful to The Woman's Voice for this poll, that I may defend an opinion to the full — I say:

I admit that the right woman demands is a natural right of hers. But

His Excellency the Prime Minister Abdullah Bey al-Yafi

The first head of government in the Arab East to present to the parliamentary assembly a complete bill to do woman justice. He says: "My bill is complete — complete. It provides for granting the rights all at once. I agree that the Lebanese woman should vote and be elected to both the Chamber of Deputies and the municipal council."