CHAPTER XII.

THE PRESENT POSITION.

§47. The Election of 1900.

A SIGNIFICANT feature of the present position of the movement is the change of temper of the opposition. "How does an ordinary man of the world answer I when he is asked if he is in favour of women voting?" Viscountess Amberley asked in her lecture at Stroud in 1870, and then added: "He does not say, 'I am afraid of their influence at elections; they will all be Tories.' He does not say it would subvert the political and social order of things; they would all be Radicals. No; he generally smiles benignly and says, 'I don't think ladies wish for it,' and turning, if he can, to some pretty, dolllike girl, he will appeal to her to confirm his statement." But though some still appeal to the doll-like girl, the things that Lady Amberley, in 1870, found they did not say, are the very things that most opponents say now. Men on each side expect that the vote will be a leap in the dark in favour of the other side, whichever that happens to be and opportunists on either side in these days wish for evidence of the truth of Miss J. G. Wilkinson's

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assertion, at the Trades Union Congress at Aberdeen in 1884, "that it is absurd to suppose women will vote all Conservative or all Radical; they will do nothing of the kind;" they have only to take the trouble to look round and see the work which has been done by women in the General Elections of recent years, and most especially in that of October 1900, when their work exceeded that of any previous occasion, and, moreover, presented some unusual features, owing to the absence of many of the candidates at the seat of war in South Africa.

In North Wilts Lady Dickson Poynder addressed a letter to the electors, asking them to support her husband, Sir John Dickson Poynder, then on his way home from the front. In the Kendal division of Westmorland, Mrs. Bagot, wife of Major Bagot, M.P., issued an election address, signed by herself, Dosia Bagot. Other ladies addressed meetings and organized electioneering work on behalf of their absent husbands, receiving the thanks afterwards of the constituents for the services they had rendered.

After the elections were over, many candidates, belonging to each of the political parties in the State, spoke in highly appreciative terms of the help given them by women. The Primrose League Gazette for November and December 1900 contains many extracts from candidates, in which grateful reference is made to the work of the ladies of the Primrose League. Many expressions from both Liberal and Conservative candidates-sometimes supporters, sometimes opponents of the enfranchisement of women-might be quoted, as

equally ready to publicly acknowledge the services of women during the elections; but it will be sufficient to quote the testimony of the first Lord of the Treasury, speaking at a meeting of the Primrose League in Westminster Town Hall on December 5th: "I regard you, ladies and gentlemen, as one of the greatest means by which this danger [the danger of apathy] may be mitigated or avoided. It is your organized energy which throws into every part of the machine, life, spirit and fire. It is you who see at the critical moment how the forces are to be brought up; it is you who take care that no man shall say in the quiet leisure of his own room, how excellent is the Conservative cause, but how little is it worth while to go to the poll and vote for it. .... Ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate you upon the work you have done in the past."

Such words as these are as distinct evidence as can well be desired that the old objection that it is unwomanly to take part in politics has been completely removed by the changed conditions of our social environment. Nevertheless, prejudice dies hard. If its passage is barred in one direction, it seeks to make itself a fresh outlet in another, and its latest direction is to admit that it is quite right that women should make themselves of use; that they are most efficient in telling Dick, Tom and Harry how to use their votes; but that it could be no possible use to them to be themselves possessed of that small fraction of power, that six-millionth part of the nation's voice for them it is only waste of energy to try to get such a little bit of power; they have far more scope for their energies in sweeping in other people's bits of power.

Such is the drift of argument by which even women actively working in political organizations are sometimes dissuaded from desiring the vote, and the opposition triumphantly try to imagine that women do not want it.

Let us for a moment put an analogous case. In the days of the Great King, whose millenary has just been celebrated, those who could read were few, it was a distinction to be able to read, it was not a necessity for a life of average usefulness; many an able and intelligent man and woman lived useful and respected lives without a knowledge of the alphabet. Now a man or woman who could not read would be regarded as a being of blighted intelligence, and is practically cut off from any large share in the interests of those around him. The power to read has taken its place as a necessity of civilized existence.

It is not valued for any prestige it gives, but as a necessary tool for the most commonplace needs of life. And so with the vote. Once it was a trust in the hands of a very few who looked on the many as their dependants; step by step it has been extended to the many until it has become the symbol of citizenship. There is no personal distinction in its possession, but the man incapable of possessing it is out of touch with the wider life pulsating round him.

To claim the vote for women who would be qualified if they were men is only another way of saying that the average woman should have her full average part in the living interests round her.

Take it all in all, the election of 1900 shows the growing acceptance of this view. The old and tried