The Franchise Bill had a great victory in the House
of Commons on Thursday, March 29th, when the second reading was carried by 387 votes to 10. Sir William Joynson-Hicks, who spoke first for the Government, described the Bill as an inevitable and indeed promised culmination of those various extensions of the franchise which had been supported by arguments that were " the astonishment of their own age and the platitudes of this." He admitted that a male majority of 3,000,000 in the country would now be turned into a female majority of 2,000,000, but as a matter of fact the apprehensions of 1918 about the women's vote had been completely falsified. The fear that the country would be governed by " irresponsible young things " was equally groundless. The Bill would enfranchise 1,800,000 women over thirty, 2,200,000 women under thirty who were either married or wer! earning their living, and only 216,000 idle apinsters. There was only a " minute area of potential irresponsi- bility." The Home Secretary then turned to the familiar criticism that the Bill would enfranchise opponents of the Government and we are glad to say that he dismissed that as an unworthy argument.
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