“ Then suddenly, destroying all our hopes of success and jeopardizing the very existence of representative government and all forms of democ- racy throughout the world, came the outbreak of war ; the entry of our own country and the resulting concentration of the vast majority of the British people, whether men or women, in the gigantic national effort which the successful resistance of such a foe demanded. ”

“ Lloyd George and the leading suffragists in the Government continued to assure us that the inclusion of Women's Suffrage through an amendment of the Government Bill presented us with by far the best prospect of success we had ever had. ”

“ The Bill on each of these occasions was of a very limited character; it proposed to enfranchise women-householders, widows and spinsters and would only have added about a million women to the Parliamentary register. It was called the Conciliation Bill, because it sought to conciliate the differences between different types of suffragists in the House of Commons, from the extreme Conservative who only cared for the representation of women of property, to the extreme Radical who demanded the enfranchisement of every woman. ”

“ Everyone knows that it recommended by a majority, some said a large majority, the granting of some measure of suffrage to women. Put as briefly as possible the franchise recommended for women was "house- hold franchise," and for the purposes of the bill a woman was reckoned to be a householder not only if she was so in her own right but if she were the wife of a householder. An age limit of thirty was imposed upon women, not because it was in any way logical or reasonable but simply and solely in order to produce a constituency in which the men were not out-num- bered by the women. ”

“ Asquith's promises made the carrying of a Women's Suffrage amendment to next year's franchise bill a certainty and he had offered his personal help to bring this about. It has already been described how all these confident hopes had been brought to nought; but now, December, 1916, within a fortnight of becoming Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George let us know that he was not only ready but keen to go forward on practical lines. When Parliament met we asked the Prime Minister to receive a large and representative deputation of women who had worked for their country during the war. ”

“ How could a man in the all- important position of Prime Minister pledge himself to use all the forces at the disposal of the Government to pass in all its stages through both houses a measure which might include the perpetration of "a political mistake of a very disastrous kind"? A member of Mr. Asquith's own party who took part in the^ anti-suffrage deputation interpreted this expression of his chief as an S.O.S. call to his followers in the House to deliver him from the humiliation of having to fulfil the promises he had given us. ”

“ I have described on pages 29 and 30 of Women's Suffrage, a Short History of a Great Movement, the strong impulse which had been given to the electorial activity of British women by the 726 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE Corrupt Practices Act of 1883, which made paid canvassing illegal and otherwise reduced electorial expenses. Very soon after it came into operation both the chief political parties organized bands of educated women to act as canvassers, election agents, etc., in contested elections. The war stimulated this electorial activity of women. ”

“ Nevertheless, it must not be supposed, genuine as were these tributes to Queen Victoria's political sagacity, that her example immediately cleared out of the minds of the opponents the notion that women were fitly classed with aliens, felons, idiots and lunatics, as persons who for reasons of public safety were debarred from the exercise of the Parliamentary franchise. ”

“ Another important event which greatly helped our movement in 1914 was the protest of the National Trade Union Congress on February I2th against the Government's failure to redeem its repeated pledges to women and demanding "a Government Reform Bill which must include the enfranchisement of women." This was followed by resolu- tions passed at the annual conference of the National Labour Party re-affirming its decision "to oppose any further extension of the franchise to men in which women were not included." ”

“ Our societies multiplied rapidly both in num- bers and in membership. For instance, the number forming the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies increased from 64 in 1909 to 130 in 1910 and went on increasing rapidly until just before the war in 1914 they numbered more than 600, with a revenue of over 42,000 pounds a year. More important in many ways than the "militant" movement was the emergence at the General Election in 1906 of the Labour Party. ”

“ The Local Government Board had addressed a circular to Lord Mayors and Mayors and Chairmen of Town and County Coun- cils directing them at once to form Local Relief Committees to deal with any kind of distress caused by the war. We suggested to our societies that they should offer their services to help, each in its own district, in this national work. We also opened in different parts of the country forty workrooms in which women thrown out of work by the war found employment. ”

“ Thus without the existence of a single woman voter but on the strength of her coming into existence within the next few months, the women on the Municipal registers of Great Britain and Ire- land were increased in number from about one million to over eight-and-a-half millions. ”

“ The anti- suffrage press believed that it would kill the movement and it was this belief which encouraged them to give it the widest possible publicity. The wilder and more extravagant the "militants" became the more they were quoted, described and advertised in every way. The sort of "copy" which anti-suffrage papers de- manded was supplied by them in cartloads and not at all by law- abiding suffragists, who were an immense majority of the whole. ”

“ WOMEN'S MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 751 terms, and though the clause specifically conferring on them eligi- bility to the House of Lords was cut out, contained, nevertheless, important provisions in the direction of equality. It allowed them to sit on juries, be Justices of the Peace, sworn in as police officers, enter the legal profession and made it possible for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge to admit women to membership and degrees on equal terms with men. ”

“ As the war went on, the existing register, therefore, rapidly became more and more out of date. Millions of the best men in the country had become disqualified through their war service by giving up their qualifying premises. The House of Com- mons again and again postponed the date of the General Election but the occasional by-elections which took place proved that there was no register in existence on which it would be morally pos- sible to appeal to the country. ”

“ Women's Suffrage was only one of many sub- jects connected with Electoral Reform which had to be dealt with by the Conference but it is not too much to say that if it had not been for the urgency of the claim of women to repre- sentation the Conference would never have been brought into existence. ”

“ A very large 74O HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE number of our societies concentrated on maternity and child wel- fare work; others in country districts took up fruit picking and preserving in order to conserve the national food supplies. ”

“ The difference made a deep rift in the suffrage movement. The constitutional societies felt bound to exclude "militants" fn>m their membership and on several occasions issued strongly- Vd protests against the use of violence as political propa- ganda. The fact that men under similar circumstances had been much more violent and destructive, especially in earlier days when they were less civilized, did not inspire us with the wish to imitate them. ”

“ The old, the feeble, the slacker, the crank, the conscientious objector would all be left in full strength and the fighting men would be disfranchised. A Par- liament elected on such a register would, Mr. Asquith declared, be wholly lacking in moral authority. Therefore, by sheer ne- cessity the Government was forced to introduce legislation deal- ing with the whole franchise question as it affected the male voter. A Coalition Government of the Liberal, Conservative and La- bour Parties had been formed in 1915. ”

“ The only important advance in education after 1900 was the throwing open to women by the Governing Body of Trinity College, Dublin, of degrees, membership and all privileges per- taining thereto in 1903. ”

“ They worked on the land and undertook many kinds of labour that had hitherto been supposed to be beyond their strength and capacity. By what was called the Treasury agreement of 1915 the Trade Unions were induced to suspend the operation of their rules excluding the employment of female labour. ”

“ We looked forward to the debate and the divisions in the Lords with considerable trepidation. The Lords have no constituents, they have no seats to fight for and defend. It is therefore impossible to influence them by any electioneering arts but we sent to all the Peers a carefully worded and influen- tially signed memorandum setting forth the chief facts and argu- ments in our favour. ”

“ It was believed that the bill re-presented the greatest common measure of the House of Com- mons' belief in women's votes. The Labour Party were strongly in favour of a much wider enfranchisement of women but gen- erously waived their own preferences in order, as they believed, to get some sort of representation for women on the Statute Almost immediately after this large majority for I lie second reading of the Conciliation Bill in May, 1911, an official announcement was made by the Government that Mr. ”

“ He informed his party in May, 1908, that his inten- tion was to introduce before the expiration of the existing Parlia- ment a Reform Bill giving a wide extension of the franchise to men and no franchise at all to women. In the previous February a Women's Suffrage Bill which removed all sex disability from ing franchises had passed its second reading in the House of Commons but this apparently had no effect on Mr. Asquith. ”

“ These hospitals probably produced by the example of their high standard of professional efficiency and personal devotion a permanent influ- ence on the development of the women's movement in those countries where they were located. ”