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     WOMEN'S INSTITUTES . 
     
    
   
   
    
     % Among many new projects, most of which met with little popular acclain, 
     
    
   
   
    
     co 
     
    
   
   
    
     the Mathieson government came up with one that quickly captured the favor- 
     
    
   
   
    
     * TRU, 
     
    
   
   
    
     able attention of the vast majority of country housewives -- The Women's 
     
     Institute. The first unit was established at Marshfield about 1915, and the 
     
     program spread rapidly throughout the rest of the province. Heretofore, the 
     
    
   
   
    
     ladies had played an influential but totally silent role in public affairs; 
     
    
   
   
    
     rr 
     
    
   
   
    
     the Women!s Institute provided the vehicle on which they would ride toward 
     
     their rightful place on the political stage. Of course, 4t would still be 
     
     several years before they could actually walk into a polling place and 
     
    
   
   
    
     demand a ballot in a federal or a provincial election, and, even then, the 
     
    
   
   
    
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     voting privilege would be limited to women, who had a father, a son, or a 
     
     brother in uniform. This restriction, incidentally, was a cosy device to 
     
     pansure the passage of the Conscription Act, and also to aid in re-electing 
     
     the Borden government which had begun to show alarming symptoms of wear and 
     
     tear. | 
     
    

    
     As might have been expected, the Women's Institute was not greeted by 
     
     anything resembling universal approval. Some thing very Similar to the "1 
     
     blind, unreasoning hostility that had obstructed the suffragette movement 
     
     in Britain surfaced in several localities throughout the Island. Many men 
     
     resented the invasion of what they had longs believed to be their exclusive 
     
     domain. In New Haven, there were demands that the Institute ladies be 
     
     forbidden the use of the district schoolhouse as a meeting place. These 
     
     demands were threshed out and rejected in a stormy special school-meeting, 
     
     during which several participants had to be forcibly restrained from coming. 
     
     to blows. As one ratepayer remarked at the close of the meeting, "seems 
     
     like everythin! that damn Mathieson does starts people to fightin'." 
     
    
   
   
    
     Vhether the same degree of opposition was manifested in other sections, If 
     
    
   
   
    
     do not recall.