WOMEN'S MINDS
LETTERS TO THE 'EDITOR
SIR,—As one who bore a full share of the price paid in " imprisonments, hunger. strike, forcible feeding " and the rest in the agitation for the enfranchisement of women, I should like to speak a word of comfort to Elizabeth Dunn, who, judging from her article in The Spectator of December 24th is acutely depressed about the result of it. Let me assure her that in common with all my fellows in • that great struggle,
I am overwhelmed with amazement at the change that has taken place in women's outlook and in women's status during the last twenty-five years, as well as at the revolutionary social changes that are due to their inclusion in the electorate. One example alone must suffice in these days of shortage of space and of paper. ' The death-rate of infants has fallen by more than one-half of what it was when the conflict began. Before that date the mortality of bees and also of pigs had been debated in Parliament. Not until Parliamentary candidates of all Parties had to reckon with the votes of women were those particular domestic reforms put before the electors, which in the course of years have brought about this sensational improvement. The death-rate of babies has become a major political and social issue.
To pass to the other side of the question. Miss Dunn, while she admits that " women have proved that they can do man's physical labour," adds that " in things philosophical, political and sociological, they are in the mass completely uninterested." Let me remind her (in brief) that the National Food Controller has fallen back upon the mass of village women in village institutes in times of emergency ; and that practically the whole Cabinet at the cost of enormous organi- sation and expense summoned women from all over the country to meet them in private conference in the Royal Albert Hall.
Furthermore, Elizabeth Dunn castigates " women in the mass " because in these days of universal overstrain and overwork they seek escape in fiction, mainly in love stories. She loses sight of the fact that men in clubs and pubs. find escape in cards, or darts, or billiards, while women, because of the nature of their work, are more closely tied to the hearth-stone.
Enfin, let me assure Elizabeth Dunn that never in our wildest dreams did we, " who fought tenaciously for the franchise," imagine that the exercise of the vote would regenerate the "mind and moral character of women in a single generation. On the contrary, we learned in the travail of our soul, that the law of growth operates slowly, but were at the same time inspired by our faith, that its results are sure.—
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