said, in the course of his speech, that they had to complete the work of 1867, and that they had also to claim the suffrage for women who are householders.1

Almost contemporaneously with this new impetus to the movement came the death of its first leader. Mr. John Stuart Mill passed away at Airgrove on April 8th. "His was the hand which dealt the first effectual blow at the political slavery of women. Many before him had thought, and spoken, and written against the subjection of women, but no one before him had taken practical steps to abolish their political disabilities.” So Miss Becker wrote in the Women's Suffrage Journal of June 1873. "Let them, then, avail themselves," she went on to say, "of the occasion; let them honour Mill by the one tribute and the one duty which women alone can give. Men can raise monuments to his memory; men can labour, as he has laboured, for the removal of electoral disabilities; but Mill could not give and men cannot give - political freedom to women, unless they themselves come forward to claim and exercise it. Men cannot prove that Mill was wise or right in claiming political emancipation for women; women alone can justify to the world the course he took on this great question by the earnestness with which they seek, and the discretion with which they use, the political rights which he sought to obtain for them."

Such was the position and attitude of the suffrage workers when the election of 1874 took place. The

1 Quoted from Birmingham Daily Post in Women's Suffrage Journal of February 1872, p. 15.

attitude of Parliament may be gathered from the following table of the division lists in the House of Commons :

CHAPTER VII.

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1874.

§ 26. A Dilemma.

THE General Election of February 1874 placed a Conservative Ministry in power, with Mr. Disraeli at its head. Like the previous election of 1868, this election returned an increased number of supporters of the claim of women to the franchise. It also resembled the election of 1868, in the distressing particular that the leader of the question was defeated. Not only Mr. Jacob Bright, but also Mr. Eastwick, who had seconded the Bill, was left out; so also were Mr. Fawcett, Mr. Hinde Palmer, and several other friends of the measure. The loss of these strong supporters in the House occasioned much anxiety as to who would now be Parliamentary leader. And it was with considerable gratification that the Committees found that so prominent a member of the legal profession as Mr. W. Forsyth, Q.C. (Conservative; M.P. for Marylebone), was willing to take charge of the measure.

Presently, however, a difficulty arose, and the Committees found themselves in a considerable dilemma on

hearing that Mr. Forsyth proposed to introduce words. into the Bill, which, however desirable from the Parliamentary point of view, as giving precise definition to its actual operation, would, they well knew, be a stumbling-block from the propagandist point of view.

Miss Becker, writing to Mr. Eastwick on March 4th, thus explained the difficulty:

"I earnestly hope Mr. Forsyth does not wish to alter the wording of our Bill. It would be a fatal error, as it seems to me. We should limit ourselves strictly to the disabilities of sex and leave the marriage question alone. We ought not to introduce the matter of marriage into the electoral law. If married women cannot vote under the Municipal Franchise Act of 1869, it is nothing in the wording of the Statute which disqualifies them, but the common law disabilities of marriage. It would be very unwise to raise the question of the expediency of maintaining these disabilities in a debate on the question of removing the disabilities of sex. The Bill with respect to the Parliamentary franchise should strictly follow the precedent of the Municipal Franchise Act, otherwise we shall be overwhelmed with difficulties at the outset. The Bill as it stands has obtained 155 votes in the old House of Commons and 218 pledges in the new Parliament. If it is altered, all these pledges will be vitiated. The Bill as it stands satisfies women who are claiming the franchise. If we cannot have all we want-a Bill conferring the suffrage on the same conditions as it is given to men—the alteration could be made in Committee, and we must perforce submit; but, pray, use your influence to get the Bill introduced in its original form. The Bill as it stands is sound and comprehensive in principle. It does not touch the disabilities of marriage. If it attempted to deal with it, it must either first abolish the disabilities in cases where a married woman possesses the qualification as owner or occupier of property, if she can possess it; or, secondly, conferring the existing common law disability by a fresh statutory penalty on marriage. I believe that either of these courses would raise grave objections,

and would certainly hinder the chances of passing the second reading of the Bill, chances which appear to me very favourable, if the old Bill, which has stood so many debates with constantly increasing support, is adhered to."

The position was laid before the public in its plain and practical aspect by the following article in the Women's Suffrage Journal for April 1874:

"One very important change has been introduced this year into the Bill, the text of which will be found in another column. Mr. Forsyth had added a clause providing that no married woman shall be entitled to vote in a Parliamentary election. The clause makes no difference in the practical operation of the measure. The common law disabilities of married women effectually preclude them from the exercise of the suffrage, and if the Bill as introduced by Mr. Jacob Bright had become law, no married woman would have been entitled to vote. The only difference is, that Mr. Jacob Bright was content to leave the matter to the operation of the common law, and did not desire to complicate the general question of the disability of sex with the special question of the disabilities of married women, and Mr. Forsyth deems it expedient to make an express declaration on the subject. We do not disguise our extreme regret, on grounds of principle, that a statutory penalty on marriage should be introduced into the electoral law, but women have at present no representation at all in the legislature. The Bill, as introduced by Mr. Forsyth, would give them a share in the election of members of the House of Commons, equal and similar to that which they would have