The Progress of the World. 



21 



work ratlier than adulr judgment. Mr. 

 Lansburv's chivalry in the woman's cause 

 is magnificent, but to shake his fist in the 

 face of the Prime Minister, using language 

 the while in keeping with his gestures, and so 

 to Compel his expulsion for the day from the 

 precincts of Parliament, is — to make one wish 

 that his head were as good as his heart. To 

 denounce as a demand for the recantation 

 of " principle" the generous offer of free- 

 dom to the imprisoned suffragettes on their 

 promising not to repeat the breaking of 

 windows is another proof of the same in- 

 explicable mentality. It remains to be seen 

 whether the masculine intelligence of the 

 House of Commons will in its turn not be 

 guilty of similar or even worse logic, and 

 because a few women have acted with 

 provoking irrationality, proceed to refuse to 

 the great mass of law-abiding womanhood 

 long-delayed political justice. If what 

 ought to be the picked wisdom of the 

 nation changes its settled purjjose in dealing 

 with a great national problem because of 

 the eccentricities of a few abnormal in- 

 dividuals, then the logic of the House of 

 Commons will have sunk far below even the 

 logic of the window-breaking suffragettes. 

 The Government Bill to 

 The Approach simplify all Parliamentary 

 Manhood" Suffrage. Suffrages to the sole con- 

 dition of six months' 

 residence by an adult male, to abolish all 

 plural voting, to do away with University 

 representation, and to make registration the 

 automatic act of the municipal authorities, 

 is a grand step forward toward making 

 democracy a reality ; though as long as 

 wonien have no votes it still goes not quite 

 half the way. The Opposition are logically 

 unable to challenge the measure on 

 principle, but will a|)parently pursue the old 

 policy of demanding at the same time a 



redistribution of seats, on the basis of "one 

 vote one value " ; the justice of which, again, 

 Ministerialists cannot "on principle" dispute. 

 Theamendment toabolishthe male monopoly 

 of the Parliamentary vote may or may not 

 be carried, but the Government is expected 

 to push the Bill through at all hazards. 

 The precise form of amendment which will 

 secure the largest amount of support is yet 

 to be discovered. Even the most sanguine 

 suffragist does not expect the enactment of 

 equal electoral justice between man and 

 woman. That would mean a majority of 

 woman electors : a result regarded for some 

 occult reason as quite intolerable — at first. 



Ttie new measure forces 



Too Many Voters, to ouf memory Lord Ran- 



NottooFew. jojpij Churchill's words 



on election by popular 

 vote. " Your foundation," he said, " is a 

 great seething and swaying mass 



of five million electors, who have it in their power, if they 

 should so please, by the mere heave of the shoulders, if they 

 only act moderately unanimously, to wipe away entirely ancient 

 institutions and put anything they like in their place, and to 

 profoundly alter, and perhaps for a time altogether ruin, the 

 interests of the 300 million beings who are committed to their 

 charge." 



And now we are to have this seething 

 and swaying mass doubled or quadrupled! 

 Already the thinking man feels that there 

 are too many who have the vote, not 

 too few. Universal suffrage should logically 

 only accompany universal education, and 

 universal education should only be counted 

 as real when the great majority of the 

 voters have been taught to think. To- 

 tlay that is far from being the case. 

 The majority of voters consists of the 

 unthinking, not of the thoughtful. If 

 extension of the franchise be inevitable in 

 the struggle for votes, then let it be 

 universal extension, inchuling men and 

 women alike. The fact remains that until 

 our eilucational svstem is set on a sane 



