"...The political head of this colony says women do not want the removal of their disabilities. I can believe that a few women, through sheer ignorance, say they do not want it. I can believe that some dare not admit they want it. But that the majority do not want it is, I believe, simply untrue. We women of the National Council do not pay annual visits to the towns of the colony for our own amusement. There is no royal road to the capacity for real service, as there is no royal road to any supreme attainment, and we who have taken up the white woman's burden of responsibility in this corner of our great Empire are bound to do what we can to put an end to this hell born conspiracy of silence which is eating into the very vitals of our humanity. We crave for education and free and unhampered life-a life of wholesome economic independence. It is perhaps too much to expect those who have grown up in indifference or ignorance to adjust themselves to the new conditions which a century of scientific discovery has rendered inevitable, but surely our younger brothers who have grown up side by side with our girls in the happy comradeship of mixed schools and colleges will range themselves, as I believe they are already doing, on the side of justice and right."
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As stated in New Zealand Mail's "Napier, May 8" New Zealand Mail. Published: 14 May 1902. Accessed: 4 February 2026.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Sievwright
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Margaret Sievwright
Margaret Home Sievwright (née Richardson; 19 March 1844 – 9 March 1905), known as Margaret Sievwright, was an active political figure and feminist in temperance and suffrage movements, later becoming the president of the National Council of Women of New Zealand.
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