The House of Lords began on Monday to debate the
Franchise Bill on second reading. Lord Bryce attacked the Woman Suffrage clause. There was, he said, no evidence that the nation wanted it, or that the women wanted it, or that the women were qualified to use the vote. Woman Suffrage had made no difference, kir better or for worse, in America. No sufficient reason had been shown why we should be the first old nation to try this bold experiment. Lent Parmoor and Lord Burnham urged very forcibly that the Bill would be imperfect if it did not provide for Proportional Representa- tion, and thus do justice to minorities. In the resumed debate on Tuesday Lord Halsbury, in a speech of great vigour for a man of ninety-two, declared that the Bill was a very bad Bill, and should not have been introduoed at such a time as this. But on patriotic grounds he would vote for the Bill, sooner than risk the fall of the Ministry. Lord Chaplin and Lord CoWdray pressed for the inclusion of Proportional RepresentatiOn, as the Speaker's Conference pro- posed, and the Lord Chancellor told. the Peers that a vote for the second reading would not imply approval of Woman Suffrage. The Bill was read a second time on Wednesday, after a cautious speech from Lord Curzon, who said that the Bill was not a Govern- ment measure in the ordinary sense, and that he, for his part, objected strongly to certain features of the Bill.
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