THE WOMEN'S FRANCHISE.
[To MR EDITOR Or THE " SPICCTATOR."1 you allow me a line of reply to the article on Mr. Woodall's amendment in your last number ? Your main point is, as I understand, that the amendment "contemplates a. revolution," which you affirm to be "social rather than political," and which, therefore, requires more mature con- sideration than it has yet received. It seems to me, on the contrary, that in refusing to treat sex alone as a ground of dis- franchisement, the Legislature would simply recognise in our political constitution what the best reflection shows to be an established fact of our social and industrial organisation, to abolish which would require such a revolution as it has never entered even into Mr. George's head to advocate. So long as the responsibility is thrown on women, unmarried or widows, of earning their own livelihood in any way that industrial com- petition allows, their claim to have their ordinary constitu- tional protection against any encroachments on the part of other sections of the community is primd facie undeniable. And surely, according to the view of democracy and its tendencies which you forcibly stated in an article on May 10th, this broad and obvious consideration ought to prevail against any inge- nious arguments that may be constructed for concluding that the interests of women are not, as a matter of fact, likely to be encroached upon. "Democracies," you say, "if they once begin to be indifferent about the principle of democracy are indifferent to the very law of their being ; and they cannot see any section of the people excluded from one of the chief rights of the people without giving up the principle of democracy itself." If this be true, the enfranchisement of women, who are merely excluded on the ground of sex, must come, as an irresistible corollary from the principle of the great political change which this Reform Bill realises. And surely all the arguments that are urged for making the measure a final and complete one in other ways may also be urged against deferring this logically inevit- able step.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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