An important letter from Sir Edward Grey was read at
a woman suffrage meeting at Glasgow on Monday night. He said that there was no truth in the report that if a woman suffrage amendment to the Franchise Bill was carried it would be followed by a resignation which would break up the Government. The corollary to such a position would be that if such an amendment were not put into the Bill the suffragist Ministers should resign and withdraw their support from it. This was not the position, but the contrary. "If woman suffrage is put into the Bill by the House of Commons, the Government will continue their support as a whole, and woman suffrage will become part of a Government measure. The members of the Government who are in favour of woman suffrage and those who are adverse to it will equally accept the decision of the House of Commons, whatever it may be." This, Sir Edward Grey maintained, was the only method which was fair to the House of Commons and to the question of woman suffrage. Everything depended on the feeling of the House of Commons. The greatest obstacle was the exasperation caused. by militancy, the continuance of which would increase that exasperation to an overwhelming degree. Those who resorted to violence and intimidation were far more hurtful to woman suffrage than any of its declared opponents. Sir Edward Grey concluded by observing that it was by argument, sympathy, and conviction that the day would be won.
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