ADAMLESS EDEN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2657, 12 November 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

ADAMLESS EDEN.

WOMEN’S COLONY FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

(From tlie London “Daily Mail.”) No man will be allowed to own a share of stock or a rood of land or to hold any office in the new industrial colony which is about to be started in Western Australia by a number of British women.

The colony 'is situated within forty miles of Albany, on the great rock facing the .sea. The land has been secured from tlie Government of the Commonwealth by a number of British ladies as a freehold property. Among the number is Mrs Emily Crawford, president of the Householders’ League; Miss Crooks, chief of the Women’s Agricultural College established by Mrs Victoria Woodhull Martin at Bredon’s Norton, in Worcestershire; Miss Hetty Sawyer, M.D., and a lady who prefers to be anonymous, but who has a large holding in the woollen industry. The moving spirit is Mrs Crawford, a novelist and artist. NO MEN LANDOWNERS.

A good deal of the capital needed for the scheme is secured, and all would be forthcoming were it not that Mrs Crawford and the other freeholders under no circumstances will allow men to purchase any land. Even married women whose husbands are alive are also excluded from the privilege. Widows and spinsters, in fact, will run the colony iri the interest of their sex. When Mrs Crawford was asked why it was she and her associates went so far afield for their purpose she repl:f .1: “It is solely a question of the par-, liamentary vote. There is no security in this country for women’s financial enterprise. We pitch our tents in Australia because there women have the franchise. Consequently they have the protection and tlie advantage which this affords.” .

This new township is finely equipped by nature for a health resort. Situation and scenery are beautiful. It has mineral springs of much local reputo for rheumatism, gout, and so on. There is also a small lake of pure fresh water", and in addition good fishing and wild bird shooting. TEN DAYS FROM COLOMBO.

Finally, the place is within ten days’ journey of Colombo —an immense advantage to Anglo-Indian families, who will thus be enabled to leave their children there instead of taking them to England. The owners of the township intend, further, to establish schools which will compare favorably with first-class schools in England. At Emiliah will be built the first Australian kursaal. It will be erected on the model of a German “Bad.”