Lord. Lytton's reply to Mr. Asquith points out that it
is common-ground between the Government and the suffragists that in the Parliamentary handling of this question women bare laboured under what the Prime Minister himself described as "a great hardship." Bills for the enfranchisement of women have repeatedly passed their second reading, and yet no effect has been given to the opinion-thus recorded. "Your letter," he goes on, "indicates that you propose to make the debate of this Session, serious, comprehensive, and decisive though it was, one item the more in a long list of unfruitful and academic discussions." Lord Lytton ends his letter as follows :- "Our object was to provide by way of compromise a solution of a problem the. urgency of which the Government recognises while it avows its inability to legislate itself. The significant vote by which our proposals were adopted entitles us to claim the rights of a majority. We propose before Parliament reassembles to lay before you further evidence of the extent and urgency of the demand for the passage into law of Mr. Shackleton's Bill this year."
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