On Monday Mrs. Humphry Ward spoke at a meeting of
the Croydon branch of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League. While admitting that in the long run opposition to woman suffrage turned on the fundamental fact of maternity, she rested her own objections on two convictions : first, that the Parliamentary vote represented a fraction of the executive power and responsibility of the English democracy in political affairs, and not only the opinion of that democracy but the power behind that opinion ; secondly, that it was not patriotic for women to claim that executive power and responsibility. All the reforms that Mill said could not be got without the vote had been steadily obtained by the force of publics opinion ; and if many reforms were still wanted, never bad the opinion of women been so carefully and scrupulously consulted as it was to-day. In conclusion, Mrs. Humphry Ward gave the results of a recent postcard canvass of women householders in Southampton, Westminster, Central Finsbury, and Croydon, in which the anti-suffragist majority varied from nine to one to about three to one. We note that on the same day Miss Christabel Pankhnrst declared that if facilities were refused for the passage of the Conciliation Bill, it would be a challenge to women to do their worst.
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