WOMEN AND PARLIAMENT
SIR,—Miss Rebecca West has shifted her ground. In her first letter she described my paper as " artless ": now she applies that term merely to my proposal of tinted voting papers, which was only one item in it. Even so, that she dislikes the proposal does not make it artless, and it was in fact put forward after mature consideration.
I can see no justification whatever for Miss West's assertion that to colour (not " mark ") women's voting papers pink and men's blue would establish " a most dangerous precedent, which might lead to the ear- marking of group votes and the defeat of the purposes of the secret ballot." The main purpose of the secret ballot is to prevent the victi- misation of the individual voter. How could this purpose be defeated by women dropping pink papers and men blue papers into the ballot box?
As for Miss West's assertion that this proposal " could afford no basis for any general conclusions whatsoever," I can only marvel at her rash- ness—or is it hex ignorance of the powers of statistical analysis? Even in a single constituency something could be learnt from the distribution of the male and female vote, notwithstanding the " numerous factors at work which cannot be exactly evaluated " (of the• existence of which I am, of course, well aware). But in dealing with election results for the whole country the effect of those factors would be greatly diminished and correspondingly much more could be learnt. There is clearly a prima-facie ease for supposing that women in general may prefer to be represented by men, though we are too ignorant at present to dogmatise about it. But whereas I want to clear the matter up and am quite pre- pared to accept the result either way, Miss West prefers us to retain our present state of ignorance. Can it be that she fears lest fuller know- ledge should establish that preference? The absurdity of Miss West's last sentence will be seen if it is trans- lated into the terms of the present discussion. It would then read
ia . all women must be men, because most voters are women, but the men's vote is in certain areas important." Need I add any continent? Let us in any case not lose sight of the main issue. Women now out- number men as electors, and I want them (and surely Miss West also wants them) to wake up not only to their rights but also to their responsibilities. When they do they will, amongst other things, take steps to secure fuller representation on the party machines, where present attitudes, I agree, leave much to be desired. It is because the present state of affairs is so unsatisfactory that I want to see it improved: and one of the first steps towards improvement is accurate knowledge of
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