Women and the Franchise

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 9791, 17 March 1908, Page 1

Women and the Franchise

The London Spectator, one of tho ablest and sanest of the English weeklies, is strongly opposed to the granting of the Parliamentary franchise to women, on tho grounds that law-making and government rest in the last resort on force—that is, on the weapon which man. alone can wield. "It is," it says, "evidently necessary, in the present instance, to state once more tlie plain reason why women cannot have the Parliamentary vote; cannot, that is, take u deciding part in framing the legislation of the State, it is not becau.se they are inferior to men in morals, in courage, in patriotism, or in intellectual power.' lii heart and head the sexes are equal. But it is liecaueo women are inferior to men in physical strength, it is a very old reason, but most things that are true are very old. If women had the Parliamentary suffrage, there might,- nay, almost, certainly would, come a. time when the one sex, as a whole, found itself in sharp conflict with the other sex on some momentous problem, and the result would be worse than deplorable, it would be terrible. It would be anarchy in its most disintegrating form. For, remember, the last resort of the sharpest political disagreement is always tho same. It was the resort of the English citizens who do. throned Charles I. ; it was the resort of tlie States of the North when the Confederacy strove to dissolve the Union ; it was the weapon well-nigh drawn from the scabbard before the reforms of 1832; and it is' a weapon which women eould never draw with the faintest, hope of success. Is that exaggeration? Is the ideal of personal conflict between men and women incredible or impossible? Let us put a. particular case. Suppose that the House of Commons women were actually represented by the majority of members, because there were more women on the registers than men. Suppose that a Bill were introduced to curtail the power of the liquor trade to an extent immensely in adVance of the reform desired by the majority of male opinion. If the Bill, became law, and the great majority of men refused to obey it, what would happen? The women could not enforce the law they had made, because they could not command the police or the arsenals. The situation would be ridiculous until, with the attempt to enforce the law, it became horrible. The supreme irony of the struggle would be that women's very nobility and devotion to an ideal would drive her to the bitterest end. The word 'compromise' for her would not exist; she would insist upon a decision, even though she knew that she must go under in upholding her belief. That is an eventuality which under a system of manhood suffrage fortunately cannot arise. The male minority, except in the rare case of insurrection, accept the decision of the male majority, because the very fact of there being a majority shows that the decision would not be altered by fighting. With women forming the majority that would no longer be the ease."