The Progress of the World. 



141 



Parliamentary groups. Then the Irish agri- 

 culturist will lie down amicably with 

 the Ulster manufacturer and be mutually 

 helpful. Tariff Reform — of a kind -will 

 come inevitably, when there is no more 

 chance of securina: revenue by other means. 

 Indirect taxation is perhaps most liked by 

 the Minister and least disliked by the tax- 

 payer. But there is no need to make a fuss 

 about it or to put it seriously in a party 

 programme. The people of this country 

 want constructive development and evolu- 

 tion; they do not want the politics of mere 

 partizan pugilism. What we want is a 

 party as free from merely polemical politics 

 as modern religion is not free from polemical 

 creed and do2;ma. 



By^trmisii ■■ 



Peaceful Provocation. 



At all costs I shall rlcfcnd this 



CiKRMANY (challenging) 



\x<\y." 



Britain (calmly) : " .Same here— and a bit more." 



I'EACK : •' Well, let':, hope they won't quarrel, or there'll bo 



an end of inc." 



The militant Suffragettes 

 The Sisterhood \yj_yQ again shown to the 



importulJe Widow. ^^■'""I'l ^'''^^ ^^ev are pre- 

 |)ared to go to any extreme 

 in pursuit of their ideals. Arson, personal 

 violence, destruction of property — these are 

 but incidents in their campaign. They 

 certainly realise that if they once embark 

 upon a campaign of importunity they must 

 keep it up. and on a rising crescendo, if they do 

 not want the whole thing to fall Hat. We do 

 not think that their method is the most 

 likely to secure them what they want, since 

 it does not appeal to the mass of those they 

 seek to convince. They will doubtless 

 terrorise Ministers, but they will get the 

 vote later, not sooner. They forget that it 

 is hard to convince English peo])le who are 

 iust emerging from the law-abiding era 

 that it is the right thing to entrust the 

 making of laws to those who consistently 

 break existing laws. Some excuse may 

 be found for the militants in such pre- 

 cedents as the burning of Bristol before 

 the Reform Act, and others of similar 

 nature. But the very fact that these 

 |)recedents are used as arguments in 

 favour of present-day violence is a very inter- 

 esting sidelight u|)on their lack of mental 

 perspective on the march of progress. What 

 was recognised as legitimate argument in 

 the Stone Age would not produce the 

 necessary results to-day. 'i'he militants 

 seeni to forget this. What would they 

 say if, when convicted of employing 

 the methods of before the Reform Act, 

 they were to be punished as were the 

 agitators of that period ? .\ sentence 

 of transportation to distant parts of the 

 Empire would perhaps work permanent 

 good to the Empire, but it would not, we 

 believe, |)lease the militants. \m\ yet therr 

 they might find votes and equality without 



