THE ERROR OF MILITANCY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 155, 6 August 1914, Page 4

THE ERROR OF MILITANCY.

3] A WOMAN'S MANIFESTO. "j A joint manifesto-o# protest against » [militancy has been issued in England by the National Union of Women ''». ' Suffrage Societies and the Conservative t Unionist Women's Franchise Assoeia- ■, tion. The signatories include Mr* ," Fawcett, Lady Selborne; Lady Fingall, I and Winifred Lady Arran. The pro? ■ test is as follows: — ; ' "Wc," the. Undersigned- represeata=- ■ tives, of law-abiding suffrage societies' covering the whole area of Great ! Britain and Ireland, have often; protested against the lawless violence of ■ ' a small section, and recent everttsicompel us once more to put on record our detestation of methods of arsons, destruction, and vandalism. We 1 oppos© these methods, and always have opposed them, because they are a negation of the very principles for which we stand. Our task of convincing: the electorate is rendered infinitely I difficult: 1 by' such actions. >: j I "It is the opponents of women "i sjifjfrage who argue that the ultimate Tbasis. \of government is physical force* We,. ; on the contrary, believe that physical force can produce no permanent settlej menfc of any great political issue, and : that the ultimate appeal is to the principles of right and reason. "OUr demands are just, and the j granting of them would be an advance in civilisation and would promote the ■ time welfare, of the nation as a whole." *" ; "Tour future, as women, is a dimini ishing future. *' Thus prophesies our ■i famous' novelist of modern evolution,, land as bo one can present Futurity j more- convincingly than Mr Wellsj we ! cannot afford to dismiss his words as. [those of an ordinary alarmist (says a(writer in the "Gentlewoman"). It isfin the last pages of his- panorama-of j prospective centuries; '' The World Set iFree/'Jhat Mr Wells, by the mouth. ., I of Marcus Karenin, the most advanced : thinker of a most advanced age,'utters-, ; these devastating words upon the final i position of women.