Review oj Reviews, l/lQ/13. 



LEADING ARTICLES. 



789 



that may be introduced into Parlia- 

 ment." 



I voted against the so-called Concilia- 

 tion Bill which proposed to give the vote to 

 every woman of property if she chose to take 

 the trouhle to get it, and at the same time 

 enfranchise only about one-tenth or one-fif- 

 teenth of the working women of the country. 

 That was simply a roundabout way of doub- 

 ling the plural voters, and no democrat could 

 possibly support it so long as there remained 

 a single alternative. The solution that most 

 appeals to me is the one embodied in the 

 Dickinson Bill, that is to say, a measure con- 

 ferring the vote on women householders and 

 on the wives of married electors; and I 

 believe that it is in that form that Woman 

 Suffrage will eventually come in this country. 

 How soon it will come depends very largely 

 on how soon the militants come to their 

 senses. 



THE FOLLY OF MILITANCY. 



The main obstacle to women getting 

 the vote, says Mr. George unhesitatingly, 

 is militancy and nothing else. He then 

 sets forth the various steps which have 

 alienated their friends, as follows: — 

 " It is perfectly astonishing," he says, 

 "to recall with what diabolical in- 

 genuity they have contrived to infuriate 

 all their opponents, to alienate all their 

 sympathisers, and to stir up against 

 themselves every prejudice in the aver- 

 age man's breast." 



A few years aeo they found three-fourths 

 jf the Liberal M.P.'s on their side. They 

 at once proceeded to cudgel their brains as to 

 how they could possibly drive them into the 

 enemy's camp. They rightly decided that 

 this could not he done more effectively than 

 by insulting and assaulting the Prime Mini- 

 ster, the chief of the Party, and a leader for 

 whom all his colleagues and followers feel 

 an unbounded admiration, regard, and af- 

 fection. When they had thus successfully 

 estranged the majority of Liberals they began 

 to study the political situation a little more 

 closely. They saw that the Irish Nationalists 

 were Very powerful factors in the Ministerial 

 Coalition. The next problem, therefore, was 

 how to destroy the last chance that the Irish 

 Nationalists would support their cause. They 

 achieved this triumphantly first bv making 

 trouble in Belfast, where the only Nationalist 

 member is or was a strong Suffragist, and 

 seco'idlv by going to Dublin when all 

 Nationalist Ireland had assembled to welcome 

 Mr. Asquith, throwing a hatchet at Mr. Red- 

 mond and trving to burn down a theatre. 

 That finished Ireland, but still they were dis- 

 satisfied. There was a dangerous movement 

 of sympathy with their agitation in Wales, 

 and they felt that at any cost it had to be 

 checked. They not only checked, but de- 

 molished it with the greatest ease by b'-e. ik- 

 ing in noon the proceedings at an Eisteddfod. 

 and Welsh interest in their cause fell dead 

 on the spot. But even then they were not 



happy. They were still encumbered by the 

 goodwill of perhaps a hundred Tory M.P.'s. 

 But they proved entirely equal to the task 

 of antagonising them. They began smashing 

 windows, burning country mansions, firing 

 race-stands, damaging golf-greens, striking as 

 hard as they could at the Tory idol of Pro- 

 perty. There is really nothing more left for 

 them to do ; they have alienated every friend 

 they ever had ; their work is complete beyond 

 their wildest hopes. 



ORGANISED LUNACY. 



" Such tactics," the Minister continues, 

 " cannot be dignified as ' political pro- 

 paganda.' The proper name for them is 

 sheer organised lunacy. The militants 

 are more concerned with the success of 

 their method than with the success of 

 their cause. They would rather not have 

 the vote than fail to win it by the parti- 

 cular brand of agitation they have 

 pinned their faith to." 



If they had accepted Mr. Asquith's pledge 

 of two years ago, and thanked him for it, 

 and helped him to redeem it, Woman Suffrage 

 by now would be an accomplished fact. But 

 they preferred their own ways, and what is 

 the_ result? The result is that working for 

 their cause in the House of Commons to-day 

 is like swimming not merely against a tide, 

 but against a cataract. The real reason why 

 the attempts to carry Woman Suffrage 

 through the House of Commons during the 

 past two years have failed is not merely the 

 difficulty of trying to combine a non-party 

 measure with the party system ; it is, above 

 all, the impassibility of using Parliament to 

 pass a bill that the opinion of the country 

 has been fomented to condemn. The fact 

 that in both the principal parties there is a 

 clean division of opinion on the issue, and 

 that no Government, or none that is at pre- 

 sent conceivable, can bring forward a mea- 

 sure for the enfranchisement of women as a 

 Government, is a great but not necessarilv an 

 insuperable obstacle. The one barrier there 

 is no surmounting and no getting round is 

 the decided and increasing hostility of public 

 sentiment; and for that the militants havo 

 only themselves to thank. 



" Personally I always try to remem- 

 ber, first, that militancy is the work of 

 only a very small fraction of the women 

 who want the vote and ought to have it, 

 and secondly that there have been crazy 

 men just as there are crazy women. 

 Militancy has not affected my own indi- 

 vidual attitude towards the main ques- 

 tion, and never will. But I recognise 

 that it has killed the immediate Parlia- 

 mentary prospects of anv and every 

 Suffrage Bill, and that so long as mili- 

 tancy continues the House of Commons 

 will do nothing." 



