Tokyo, May 10.
The House of Representatives to-day passed a private member's Bill granting the franchise municipal and prefectural elections to women of 26 years of age and over.
Although the measure is likely to be defeated in the House of Peers, to which it will next submitted, advocates of woman suffrage hail its passage by the Lower House as a victory presage ing the full enfranchisement of women in a few years.
The Cabinet has withheld approval of the Bill. The Home Minister, Mr. Adachi, explained to-day that the Government approved principle of woman suffrage, but favoured slower progress to that end.
The Bill does not include a vote in national elections—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.