UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. T HE National Liberal Federation at its meeting at
Derby adopted the policy of universal adult suffrage, and of universal adult suffrage for women as well as men. That is a great and striking event, and if it is endorsed and accepted by the leaders of the party will have very important consequences. If it is so endorsed and accepted it will doubtless relieve the Home-rule party from the charges that have been brought against it on the score that it is without a clear and definite policy. Universal suffrage for men and women may be right or may be, wrong, may be wise or unwise, from a party point of view, but at any rate it cannot be called hesitating and half-hearted. It is a clear and a big policy, and raises a great issue. Under our political system it is impossible not to consider a proposal like that adopted at Derby without at once asking what will be its effect on the party prospects. It is that question which will primarily interest the country, and therefore we shall make no apology for looking at the matter from the party point of view. Will the Home-rulers gain or lose by adopting universal suffrage, male and female, as the first plank in their political platform ?
If it had merely been proposed to extend the present suffrage to all male persons of twenty-one and over, the policy might have been regarded. as only a measure of electoral reform. In all probability such a measure would have made little or no change in the political nature of the electorate. Take an ordinary constituency, and consider who are the males of twenty - one and over who are not householders and so have votes already. A very little reflection will show that at least half such persons, and probably more than half, belong to the class which, if it cannot be described as well-to-do, is at least the class above the poorest class. The reason is obvious. Practically householder and married man are synonymous terms. But the poorer men are, and the lower they are in the social scale, the more likely they are to have married under twenty-five. In an ordinary English village you will find a considerable number of men under twenty-five who are householders, but they will almost all belong to the labouring class. The enfranchisement of the non-house- holder will not, therefore, affect the labouring class half so much as it will affect the classes in which marriage is deferred till thirty or beyond. But though the per- centage of non-householders under thirty is so very much lower in the lower labouring class than in the classes above it in the scale of riches, that class is relatively so much larger that the persons to be enfranchised in both cases, and not now qualified under the lodger franchise, would probably be about equal. Then no one class would gain by the change. But it is quite im- possible to minimise in this way the effect of female suffrage. That is a revolution. Now we do not propose to ask at present whether it is a good or a bad. revolution, or whether it would in practice work out as a revolution favourable to the Home-rulers or the Unionists. We want to take narrower ground, and con. eider merely how the proposal is likely to effect men's minds, whether the policy will attract or repel the present voters, and in what way it will act upon the present Home- rule party as a whole. First we must ask how it will be received by the leaders. Unless we are greatly mistaken, it will, if strongly insisted on, produce a profound effect on the Home-rule Front Bench. The democracy, like the Sovereign, cannot act unless it can get its decrees countersigned. by a leader. But will Sir William Harcourt agree to adult female suffrage ? No doubt he is a very long-suffering politician, but even he may refuse to under- take the task of carrying female suffrage. Since, however, the mind of Sir William Harcourt is inscrutable, we prefer not to debate this matter further till the leader of the Opposition has spoken. We will merely suggest the possibility that he and several of his colleagues may refuse to lead the party if this plank is in- sisted on. The effect of the proposal on the alli- ance between the Liberals and the Irish Nationalists is more easily estimated. The Nationalists are bound to resist to the uttermost the new project. If female suffrage is to be carried, it must be the one real issue at the next General Election and the prime work of the next Parliament. The handing over of the Government to a totally new electorate—the electorate would be more than doubled by female suffrage, for if female suffrage comes it cannot be restricted to old maids and widows—cannot be a side-dish to the -creation of a Parliament in Dublin. If it is in the, party programme at all, it must take the first place. But if it takes the first place, Home-rule must be deferred till the Parliament after next, for when the women have got the vote no male Parliament can go on legislating. Female suffrage, if it becomes the issue, will then hold the political field, and Home-rule will recede into the dim and distant future,—a purely Irish aspiration to be satisfied when convenient, but not before. But every Nationalist will call this betrayal. We may ex- pect, then, that the whole energy of the Irish party will be bent upon convincing the Liberal managers that the problem of female suffrage must not be raised till after Home-rule has been disposed of, and disposed of in accordance with the Nationalist demand. If, therefore, the Liberal party still values the Nationalist alliance, they will be forced to withdraw female suffrage, or at any rate to pledge themselves to keep it in the background. Perhaps, however, it will be said that the Liberals will be able to disregard the loss of the Irish alliance because the proposal to grant female suffrage will draw away so many voters from the Unionist party. If the Liberals count upon this they are much mistaken. Doubtless it will draw away a few Unionists in every constituency, but on the other hand, it will alienate an enormous number of Liberals. There are thousands of men in every great constituency who as a rule vote Liberal, but who, if they were made to understand at the next General Election that by giving the Liberals their votes they were casting them for women having votes, would stampede for the opposite side. Some working men, and some middle- class men, would doubtless be very little roused by the idea of " the wife " having a vote. To others, however, the thing would seem an outrage beyond endurance, and they would fling aside all party ties to prevent it. Men of this temper are usually not very much heard on the question of female suffrage because they always regard it not as a matter for argument but for expletives. They believe the proposal to be mere talk, and dread it no more than they do a Prussian invasion. If once, however, they got alarmed about the matter they would, in giving their votes, think only of how to defeat the women. But the defection of these men would be quite enough to turn the scale in the vast majority of constituencies. And this is not all. In every con- stituency there are a certain number of men who never vote. They hate and despise, or profess to hate and despise, all politics, and they curse both sides impartially as fools and self-seekers. These political misanthropists, though they do not care for party politics, very often take sufficient interest in public affairs to dislike acutely any notion of revolutionary change. They did not vote in 1892 when they thought the issue merely a party one. In 1895 they came to the poll because they really believed the Union was going to be broken up. If, and when, female suffrage is before th am they will hurl themselves against it with fury. These men are, if you will, mere political pessimists, but no pessimist of this kind will ever vote for female suffrage. He thinks the status quo only just bearable, and the idea of a violent change is to him utterly detestable. Thus, though we think the adoption of universal female suffrage by the Home-rulers a bold stroke, we cannot call it a wise one from the party point of view. It will, we predict, be resisted by a large number of the leaders, by the Irish allies of the party, and by a powerful and bitter group in every constituency. Under these circumstances we do not imagine that universal suffrage, male and female, has come to stay in the programme of the Liberal party.
But though universal male and female suffrage will have to be withdrawn or got rid of in some way or other, the party will, we cannot doubt, feel the bad influences of its proposal. In the first place, a very large section of the voters will form the notion that the Liberal party has gone soft on the one question where they seemed more matter-of-fact and commonsensical than a great many of the Conservatives. They will suspect the withdrawal as only a matter of tactics, and they will believe that female suffrage is going to emerge again at the very first opportunity. This belief will dishearten a great many Liberals. On the other hand, the strong sup- porters of female suffrage will feel that they have been sold, and they will vent their disgust on the party. Nothing makes a terrier so snappish as to hold a piece of meat in front of him, and just as his teeth are closing on it to whisk it away. The women's suffrage people are nothing if not eager, and to see their cherished policy played fast and loose with by the party will annoy them beyond endurance. No doubt the virtual withdrawal of the measure will for the moment satisfy the Irish, but they, too, will be left with a sense of annoy. ance and insecurity. It will, too, be very difficult for them after this to resist the Irish cry that a little bullying will make their allies agree to anything. Yet, as a matter of fact, a very little more bullying would produce in the Liberal party a revolution from below which might result in the abandonment of Home-rule altogether. Look at it how you will, to raise one of the greatest and most far- reaching and inflammatory political issues possible, and then not to put it to the test, but to withdraw it, or half withdraw it, must inflict enormous damage on a political party,—must raise new enemies and enrage old friends. But at the same time it is, as we have said, quite certain that the female suffrage proposals will have to be virtually withdrawn. They cannot be maintained in the special circumstances with which the Liberal party is confronted. The Liberal party, then, has once again made a most serious political blunder, and one from which it cannot be extricated without loss of influence and power. The truth is, the Liberal party is in a thoroughly unhealthy condition. It will never regain tone unless it manages to throw off the corpse of Home- rule to which it is now tied, and which it wearily drags along with it. While Home-rule was a living thing it was a possible source of strength. Now that it is dead the pretending that it is still alive, and the refusal to bury it and leave it alone, make political defeat almost a certainty. The party must either abandon Home-rule, or devote all its time and energies to an attempt at resuscitation. There is no middle course between abandon- ment and a sincere and active advocacy of so important a policy.
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