30 APRIL 1892, Page 22

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. T HE debate on

Women's Suffrage in the House of Commons is justly described as an able debate ; but we do not feel, in reading it, that the speakers on either side fully met the assumptions as well as the arguments of the speakers on the other side. Almost all the speeches were good in themselves, but they were speeches in different planes of thought, and did not seem, therefore, to encounter and grapple with each other. The speeches of all the supporters of Sir Albert Rollit's Bill were all speeches for a particular and exceedingly limited proposal, namely, to give to the women who are now voters in municipal consti- tuencies, the right of voting also for Parliamentary constituencies ; and they took pains to show for the most part, that whether or not that concession would lead to further concessions, they were not arguing for further concessions ; they were arguing for the utility and harmlessness of that proposal, and of that proposal only. On the other hand, those who opposed the Bill said very little against the Bill itself; they rightly and wisely perhaps, devoted themselves less to upsetting the arguments advanced for Sir Albert Rollit's measure, than to re- futing the arguments which would in all probability be advanced for extending Sir Albert Rollit's measure in- definitely in a direction for which none of its apologists had made any attempt to contend. And they assumed, rather than endeavoured to prove, that it would be im- possible to confine the public feeling in favour of Sir Albert Rollit's measure, if such public feeling there were, to the very limited and almost insignificant privilege which he desires to confer. Yet to show that this would be im- possible, was, as it seems to us, the first step to be taken. And we do not think that it is a difficult or at all unim- portant step. Sir Albert Rollit does not propose to give • women a Parliamentary franchise on the same terms as those on which men have that franchise. He proposes to give them only what may be called the ratepaying, which is the municipal franchise. He does not give them the -forty-shilling freehold franchise ; he does not give them • the lodger franchise ; he does not give them the service franchise. If his Bill passed, a married woman with a .forty-shilling freehold of her own would have no right to vote. A single woman living in lodgings would have no right to vote. A maid-servant, or cook, or nurse, living in a family, would have no right to vote. Now, how can Sir Albert Rollit defend these exclusions on the principle on which he argues for giving female ratepayers the same Parliamentary franchise as male ratepayers ? Would he say that female ratepayers are the political equals of male ratepayers, but that female freeholders and female lodgers and female servants are not the political equals of male freeholders and male lodgers and male servants ? That would, in our estimation, be a most untenable and absurd position to take up. Is it true that a daughter or wife who happens to possess a small freehold is to be reckoned inferior in political intelligence to a son or husband who happens to possess a freehold ? Is it true that a woman living in lodgings is to be reckoned in- ferior in political intelligence to a man living in lodgings ? Is it true that an average cook or parlour-maid or .nurse is to be reckoned inferior in political intelli- gence to a footman or coachman or butler? Hardly any one would maintain it. Then why this remarkable difference in the political privileges conferred ? And how would it be possible to maintain and perpetuate this difference ? Does it not look very much as if the acci- dent that women householders may be enfranchised without enfranchising a considerable class of disreputable women lodgers who, while quite as clever and intelligent as disreputable male lodgers of the same morale, are much more clearly marked off,—more visible,—as persons on whom it would not be very desirable to confer the fran- chise, had induced Sir Albert Rollit and his friends to fix on a particular franchise, the ratepaying franchise, as the one which it would be least objectionable to confer, in the first instance, upon women ? It is, in any case, very re- markable that the advocates of Women's Suffrage are thus anxious to exclude not only disreputable women when they make no such attempt to exclude disreputable men, but also what is perhaps the largest class of honourable women,—namely, married women,—from the possession of the franchise. Why is this ? Why is a distinction which keeps out of the franchise at once the least respected and the most respected women, made by the friends of Women's Suffrage, unless they feel in their own minds that there is a very grave difference between the qualifications of the two sexes for political struggle, and that it is necessary and convenient to keep out- side the sphere of politics, both those who would be likely to lower definitely the tone of political warfare, to the injury of politics, and also those whose tone political warfare would be likely to lower, to their own injury ? Nothing of the same sort is felt in relation to men. There are plenty of dissolute men who possess the fran- chise, and no one makes an effort to disfranchise them. There are very many of the most high-minded and refined of men who possess and exercise it, and no one supposes that it is likely to lower their tone or to disturb their domestic influence. Surely these two very remarkable exclusions in the case of women which are at least sanctioned by, if they are not (as we believe) carefully provided for by the friends of Women's Franchise, point to some radical difference between the qualifications of the two sexes for political warfare, of which it is im- possible not to take note, as suggesting assumptions entirely inconsistent with the alleged equality, in this respect, of the two sexes. It is absurd to say that women householders are to be enfranchised only because male householders are enfranchised, and yet to refuse to en- franchise women lodgers and women servants for the same reason for which male lodgers and male servants are enfranchised. Nay, everybody knows that householding would never have been selected as the proper political test at all, if the early reformers had ever contemplated including responsible and properly qualified women on the same lines as responsible and properly qualified men. The mistress of a house is just as responsible and just as well qualified in character for the appre- ciation of political issues, as the master ; and yet when the ten-pound qualification was selected by Lord John Russell, no one even thought of taking objection to it on the ground that it would not qualify the wives for the franchise,—in other words, would not qualify one large class of women, who have no less intelligence, and probably an even higher average standard of moral feeling, than the many men who were made by that measure the con- stituents of Members of Parliament. As a matter of course, if women had then been thought of as constituents, either the wife would have been joined with the husband as a joint- voter, or some totally different qualification would have been looked for. And it is obvious that now, when the advo- cates of. Women's Franchise declare so eagerly that the female sex is no political disqualification for the franchise, the whole question of qualification should, if they are right, be reopened, and some test proposed which does not exclude wives merely because the house is not held in their name. But if this were the course taken by the advocates of Women's Franchise, they would certainly not content themselves with Sir Albert Rollit's Bill, and still less would they select one small class of women, and one small class only, the class of women householders, for enfranchisement. Nothing seems to us plainer than that if women house- holders are to be enfranchised, women freeholders, women lodgers, and women servants will soon claim, and in all probability gain, what women householders will have obtained. And then assuredly wives, who are neither householders nor lodgers nor servants, will not submit to be left out in the cold. Yet the evident reluctance of the greater number of the advocates of Women's Franchise to admit either one of the most honourable or one of the least honourable classes of women to the franchise, speaks volumes against the radical assumption of the whole move- ment, that in the strife of politics sex makes no difference.

Our own belief is, and always has been, that sex makes no difference in the capacity of women for entering into the sig- nificance and bearing and importance of political questions, but that it makes a very great difference indeed in the ap- propriate way in which each sex should use that insight and bring it to bear on the actual solution of political questions. The appropriate way for men is to back up their arguments and opinions and convictions by declaring their will, and either inflicting or patiently enduring defeat. The appro- priate way for women is to keep out of the direct conflict of wills, and to be satisfied with the far greater influence which they can wield if they do keep out of it, and are recognised by both sides only as giving the help of their sympathy and encouragement, or the gentle check of their disapprobation and discouragement. In the municipal field, where matters more or less domestic and economical are discussed, and where parties are nothing like so sharply and strongly divided, their direct voting does no harm ; but where party feeling is apt to rise to a high point, the characteristic influence of women, instead of gaining by a direct share in the campaign, really loses by it. Even the advocates of Women's Suffrage show this, by their reluctance to think of letting women enter Parliament and compete for the great offices of the State. Yet why should they not, if sex in these matters is not a factor of any sort in the computation of the issue ? Why should not married women vote, and vote against their husbands, if there is no sort of objection to committing women to participation in an open and con- spicuous political warfare ? Why should they not even, in that case, become the leaders of parties and the heads of the Government or the Opposition ? As it seems to us, every aspect of the question, and especially the reluctance of the partisans of Women's Suffrage to admit to the fran- chise either unsexed women, or women who are in the most conspicuous manner performing the highest functions of the female sex, shows that the political influence of women should be exercised with far more reticence, with far less display of party feeling, with a far more subdued tone, as becomes those who do not ultimately decide the battle, though they exert the greatest possible influence over those who do decide it, than is at all appropriate in the case of men who take a direct part in political combats, and who are required to give to their judgment the final sanction of their volition.