What the suffragists will of course do when they obtain
their magnificent division will be to declare that the opinion of the House is so overwhelmingly in favour of the Bill that the Government must revise their decision and go forward with the measure, even if this means sitting on for another month. Mr. Asquith must of course have anticipated such an attempt to carry him and the Government off their legs. He no doubt hopes to get the better of it by naming a day for the second reading so late that he will be able to say that it is physically impossible to take any further action. The second reading, that is, will be almost the last thing on the Parliamentary pro- gramme, and plenty of Members will be allowed to steal away for their holidays before it comes on. That such action will exasperate, and justly exasperate, the women and lead the Government into further trouble we cannot doubt. As we have said again and again in these columns, we feel, strong anti-suffragists as we are, that the suffragists have a very real complaint against those who promise but do not mean to perform. No other public question that we can remember has ever been so disgracefully played with as this. To our mind, it affords yet another argument against woman suffrage. That so many men are apparently not ashamed to fool members of the other sex is, we bold, an extra reason for not dividing the sovereignty of the State, but for keeping it in the hands of one sex, and that the sex which is endowed by Nature with physical force.
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