THE IDEALS OF A "WOMAN'S PARTY."
IN another column a correspondent makes a suggestion which is the natural outcome of the series of un- dignified scuffles with the police which for some months past have been a feature of the movement for woman's suffrage. She asks for the formation of a new woman's party, opposed to the principle of granting the Parlia- mentary vote to women. Hitherto she has opposed the formation of an anti-suffrage party, perhaps believing that the silly behaviour of some of the woman's suffrage leaders was the best comment on their claims ; but she is convinced now that the movement is doing harm and should be checked. It is time, she thinks, that when the leaders of the movement state in the Police Court that they "speak for the women of England" steps should be taken to challenge the statement. Our correspondent puts her case with force and logic. Uneducated women are already being misinformed by the more ignorant of the woman's suffrage leaders on grave political questions ; they are told, for instance, that to give the suffrage to women will be "to end unemployment.," and so forth. Is it not necessary to counteract this harmful influence, and to find a wider, truer sphere for the woman's role in the limitless opportunities of home life?
We are convinced, with our correspondent, that there are "thousands of good, quiet women" who believe that the proper sphere of their sex lies in directions very different from those which are approved by the woman's suffrage party. Nothing but good could come of the formation of a woman's party pledged, not to the obtain- ing of the Parliamentary vote, but to the essential woman's work of regeneration of the ideals and influences of home life in the best and widest sense of the words. It is true that for most women there is no need for such a pledge. For the majority of women the great ideals of life are the ideals of the family and the home ; the ideals of the unequalled words of the Apostle, "love, joy, peace, long- suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- ance"; the health which is at once the fountain and the consequence of those qualities and blessings ; the wealth, little it may be, which is sufficient to enable the oppor- tunities of life to be enjoyed. Most truly "against such there is no law." But if those are the ideals of the majority of women, it is still true that for many they must seem hopelessly unattainable. The wife of a man who is unable to find employment can think little of joy or peace if she is not sure that she can keep a roof above her head, or find bread for her children. When, therefore, she, in her doubt and unhappiness, is actually assured that the cause of her distress is due to her political disabilities ; when she is informed that her remedy lies in giving the balance of political power to women instead of men,—when such perilous stuff as that is offered by the ignorant and the hysterical as food for the hungry, then it is time for women who can think clearly and speak soberly to set to work, and to strengthen their work with a pledge of comradeship. Women who have made a serious study of economic problems, or who, without a deep knowledge of political history, have felt instinctively that their sphere is the home and not the hustings, may have been inclined hitherto to dismiss as unimportant the more violent fatuities of the suffrage party. They may have considered that female politicians who chain themselves to railings or deliberately court physical conflict with policemen are better left to the prison-cell or the asylum. But if the movement started by such persons develops into a campaign which is not merely foolish but dangerous, they may well decide that the time has arrived for more positive action than silent contempt. They may think it right to prove, for the national welfare as well as for their own, that "the women of England" are not represented by vociferous prisoners at Police Courts, but are orderly members of an ordered community, working with womanly gentleness and strength towards mental and bodily health and right living.
It is one of the commonplaces of practical politics that it is necessary from time to time to state and restate in the plainest possible language what a thing is, and the reason why it is what it is It may seem superfluous to do so ; the facts and the reasons may be so patent that to state them once more may seem as foolish as to walk about repeating the, alphabet or insisting that two and two make four. The reply must be that large numbers of people are always forgetting the alphabet, or trying to prove that two and two make five. It is evidently necessary, in the present instance, to state once more the plain reason why women cannot have the Parliamentary vote ; cannot, that is, take a deciding part in framing the legislation of the State. It is not because they are inferior to men in morals, in courage, in patriotism, or in intellectual power. In heart and head the sexes are equal. But it is because women are inferior to men in physical strength. It is a very old reason, but most things that are true are very old. If women had the Parliamentary suffrage, there might, nay, almost certainly would, come a time when the one sex, as a whole, found itself in sharp conflict with the other sex on some momentous social problem, and the result would be worse than deplorable, it would be terrible. It would be anarchy in its most disintegrating and dreadful form. For, remember, the last resort of the sharpest political disagreement is always the same. It was the resort of the English citizens who dethroned Charles I.; it was the resort of the States of the North when the Confederacy strove to dissolve the Union ; it was the weapon well- nigh drawn from the scabbard before the reforms of 1832; and it is a weapon which women could never draw with the faintest hope of success. Is that exaggeration ? Is the idea of personal conflict between men and women incredible or impossible ? Let us put a particular case. Suppose that in the House of Commons women were actually represented by the majority of Members, because there were more women on the registers than men. Suppose that a Bill were introduced to curtail the power of the liquor trade to an extent immensely in advance of the reform desired by the majority of male opinion. If the Bill became law, and the great majority of men refused to obey it, what would happen? The women could not enforce the law they had made, because they could not command the police or the arsenals. The situation would be ridiculous until, with the attempt to enforce the law, it became horrible. The supreme irony of the struggle would be that woman's very nobility and devotion to an ideal would drive her to the bitterest end. The word "com- promise" for her would not exist; she would insist upon a decision, even though she knew that she must go under in upholding her belief. That is an eventuality which under a system of manhood suffrage fortunately cannot arise. The male minority, except in the rare case of insurrection, accept the decision of the male majority, because the very fact of there being a majority shows that the decision would not be altered by fighting. With women forming the majority that would no longer be the case. As matters are, while women do not possess the Parlia- mentary franchise they are in the best situation possible. They can control votes, and do control them to an enormous extent ; they can influence, advise, argue, and persuade. But they are never in the unhappy position of being responsible for a state of affairs of which they do not approve. They are not compelled by conscience to take action for the State, because they are not the State's trustees. They can acquiesce in decisions of which they disapprove, because no action of theirs can alter such decisions ; and that the irresponsible party should so acquiesce in the decisions of the responsible is an axiom of ordered government. Meanwhile, as our correspondent points out, women's opportunities of doing good work for the State remain as incomparable as they are impera- tive. In the administrative work of local government, as apart from State legislation, women can be of incal- culable service with their vote, their advice, and their example. As school managers, especially qualified to superintend the education of children ; as Guardians of the Poor, able as no man is able to understand the difficulties and the necessities of dealing with women and girls in workhouses and asylums ; as dispensers of charity, as experienced counsellors, as trusted friends among the very poor ; as examples of motherhood, as educators and protectors of girlhood,—they can have an object, and they may respond to a duty, which cannot be shared with them by men. Above all, women, more than men, must always stand first and foremost for the greatest of all ideals of social reform, the ideal which most closely associates the work and the recreations of toiling men and women with the conditions of the family and the home. With every step that they take towards the jars and conflict of the Parliamentary polling-booth women leave the peace and the happiness of those ideals the further behind them.
To sum up. Physical force, war, is ultimo ratio,—the last, the essential argument. But Nature has deprived women of the right to use that argument against men. • Therefore, though women may administer, and even direct, local affairs, they cannot legislate and exercise the supreme function in the State,—the function of government. Law-making and government rest in the last resort on force,—that is, on the weapon which man alone can wield.
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