M:. Gladstone at once rose to intimate that the Government
could not be responsible for the fate of the Bill if this amend- ment were accepted. He did not wish to argue the case on its merits, and fully recognised the force of some of Mr. Woodall's arguments ; but he maintained that nothing would be more improper than to mix up with a Franchise Bill the decision to be taken on a social question of the utmost possible magnitude, one which ought to be entirely dissociated from every party issue, and discussed by the House. as almost sacred in its character, because bearing in so many and various ways on the function and position of women in the community. Mr. Gladstone denied altogether that it was the same thing to accept the aid of women in charities, in education, in the ad- ministration of the Poor-law, and to invite them to enter the field of political battle, from which hitherto they had been excluded. He fully admitted that the question was one worthy of the gravest consideration ; but it should be taken altogether out of the vortex of political strife, and not mixed up with the fate of a Bill which was avowedly the subject-matter of a great party battle.
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