Not "Fit"

Women are not "fit and qualified persons." So ruled the Supreme Court of Canada, last week, interpreting the British North America Act, which specifies that none but "fit and qualified persons" shall be eligible to become Canadian Senators.

"In considering this question," said Chief Justice Rt. Hon. Francis Alexander Anglin, urbanely, "the Court was, of course, in no way concerned with the desirability or undesirability of the presence of women in the Senate. . . . Should Parliament eventually determine to make provision for women Senators, it will be done by the use of language very different from that to be found in the present Act. . . ."

Explaining further, the Chief Justice declared that if the Act had specified merely "persons" instead of "fit and qualified persons" the Supreme Court would have been obliged to rule that all human beings, including women, criminals and the insane, should be eligible for Canadian Senatorship.