Mr. Newdegate was vehemently opposed to-the amendment; while, however, Viscount
Folkestone, who had resisted women's suffrage on former occasions, proposed on this occasion to support it, not because it was good, but because it would enfranchise a better class of voters than many of those which the Bill itself would enfranchise ; *Sir J. Pease opposed, and Baron de Worms supported the amendment ; Mr. Beresford Hope made an animated speech against it, and Mr. Rogers followed on the same side, suggesting even that he had more or less withdrawn
from his original position that women need a better Parlia- mentary representation. Colonel King-Harman supported the amendment as in principle Conservative ; Mr. Warton, with his. usual political sagacity, spoke against it and voted for it; Mr.. Agnew, while favourable to the enfranchisement of women householders, thought the amendment wholly out of place in this Bill; Colonel Alexander supported it; Mr. W. H. Leathern would vote against it, without prejudice to his desire to see women admitted to the franchise ; Mr. Inderwick opposed the principle of women's franchise altogether; while Mr. Cowen as uncompromisingly supported it. Mr. Bryce showed that none of our Colonies and no single American State had adopted it, though two of the American Territories had tried it, and that the female wire-pullers in America are just such a type as one would not wish to have here. Mr. Labouchere said that Mr. Woodall proposed to give to vice a vote which he denied to. virtue; and Sir Wilfrid Lawson declared his intention to• support the clause, in spite of all " Whigs and prigs and philosophers."
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