confer the franchise on women ; whatever extensions of the fran-
chise it makes are to male persons only." He then referred to
the defeat of woman suffrage in March as the "considered
judgment of the House," and he dismissed as "an altogether
improbable hypothesis the possibility that the House would
stultify itself by reversing this judgment during the same session."
Notwithstanding this ominous warning Mr. Lloyd George and
Sir Edward (afterwards Viscount) Grey continued to be confi-
dent that amendments to the Government bill gave suffragists
the best chance they had ever had of parliamentary victory. The
bill itself, however, made no further progress during 1912; the
protracted session lasted all through that year and overflowed
into 1913; it was officially announced that committee stage
would be taken on Jan. 24. All possible plans were elaborated by
the real friends of woman suffrage both inside and outside Parlia-
ment to ensure the success of one or other of the suffrage amend-
ments. But the parliamentary air was still thick with intrigue,
and many and circumstantial were the rumours that the suc-
cess of any of the woman suffrage amendments would mean
the resignation of anti-suffrage ministers and the break-up of
the Government. No official contradiction was given to these
rumours until the day before the House was expected to go into
committee on the bill.

But the defeat of the bill did not proceed from this source.
Three days from Jan. 24 had been allotted for the discussion of
the woman suffrage amendments. This stage was, however,
never reached. On Jan. 23 Mr. Bonar Law asked the Speaker to
give a ruling on the point whether the Government's own amend-
ments, regarding the occupation franchise for men, did not so far
alter the bill from that which had received a second reading in
July as to make it a new measure and necessitate its withdrawal
and reintroduction in its new form. In his reply the Speaker
intimated that this was his view, and added that there were
" other amendments regarding female suffrage which of course
would make a huge difference to the bill if they were inserted."
The bill was killed by this ruling. Mr. Asquith did not mend
the situation by his treatment of the suffragists, from whom he



refused to receive a deputation, and they were more incensed
against him than ever when, in .lieu of what he himself called " the
best chance they ever had," he only offered parliamentary time
for the discussion of yet another private member's bill. All the
suffrage societies repudiated this offer and did nothing to support
the bill, which was brought forward in May 1913 and defeated by
266 votes to 219.

These events, the defeat of the Conciliation bill in March 1912
and the fiasco of the Government bill in Jan. 1913, convinced the
N.U.W.S.S. that nothing would now be of any use but a Govern-
ment bill with the whole weight of the party behind it. They
accordingly gave a new interpretation to their election policy.
This was, and continued to be, to support the best friend of
woman suffrage; but events had proved that a suffrage candidate
who belonged to a suffrage party was a better friend than a suf-
frage candidate whose party was either hostile or neutral. The
council governing the N.U.W.S.S. therefore resolved " that in
judging which of the two pro-suffrage candidates should be sup-
ported in an election, the official attitude of the party to which
the candidate belongs should be taken into consideration." An
analysis of the division when the Conciliation bill had been de-
feated showed that 42 members who had been supported by the
N.U.W.S.S. as " best friends of woman suffrage " (mostly follow-
ers of Mr. Asquith) had voted against it. When party pulled one
way and voteless women pulled the other, party proved the
stronger. As Labour was the only party which had definitely
made suffrage part of its programme, this change threw the
influence of the N.U.W.S.S. in elections definitely on the side of
Labour; and a special fund, called the election fighting fund, .was
formed for the support of Labour candidates. The N.U.W.S.S.
further resolved under no circumstances to support Government
candidates, and to endeavour by all legitimate means to strengthen
any party which adopted woman suffrage as part of its pro-
gramme. By the adoption of this policy they succeeded in 16
months in defeating six Government candidates in by-elections,
making a difference of 12 in divisions. They had also succeeded
in each of the elections concerned in making the whole place ring
with the suffrage agitation. Public opinion moved rapidly and
strongly in the suffrage direction, the general view being that
suffragists had received less than fair play at the hands of
Mr. Asquith and his Government.

A " pilgrimage " organized by the N.U.W.S.S. in 1913 received
a remarkable degree of support from the towns and villages
traversed on the seven routes by which it approached London.
But the N.U.W.S.S. were convinced that a free vote of the House
of Commons on their question was an impossibility as long as
there was a Prime Minister who was ardently opposed to his own
principles when applied to women. They were therefore deter-
mined to do everything in their power to reduce Mr. Asquith's
majority. They believed that their election-fighting policy gave
them an effective and constitutional method of doing this, and
looked forward to helping to defeat his party in the general
election which, but for the World War, must have taken place :
not later than 1915. They were full of work in preparation for
this, when on Aug. 4 1914 the overwhelming catastrophe of the
World War broke out, not only destroying all opportunity of
suffrage work but jeopardizing the very existence of represent-
ative institutions in Europe.

Suffragists shared to the full in the solemn national con- ;
sciousness that every ounce of strength would be needed in the
gigantic effort which the successful prosecution of the* war de-
manded. Indeed, suffragists realized this more quickly than the
Government, which for many months seemed to believe that the
war could be carried on solely by the efforts of. the male half of
the nation, without disturbance of the domestic calm which they
believed to be the only legitimate role of the female half: for
offers of help from women to provide, and staff hospitals to sup-
ply, women for work in public offices, thus leaving an additional
number of young men free for military service, were plentifully
douched with cold water.

Nevertheless suffragists, whether militant or non-militant,
quickly faced the facts and clearly saw what their duty was. The






WOMAN SUFFRAGE



1037



militants instantly abandoned every sort of violence and organ-
ized themselves for public service. They formed a Women's
Emergency Corps, ready to undertake all kinds of national work
which the exigencies of the time required. Others, both militant
and non-militant, in spite of official discouragement undertook
the organization of hospital units entirely officered by women
(see WOMEN'S WAR WORK). The N.U.W.S.S. committee on
Aug. 3 resolved to suspend immediately all political propaganda
and to use their staff and organizing power in mitigating the dis-
tress caused by the war. Their societies, numbering over 500,
were consulted by post, and all but two approved this course.

No one claims for suffrage women that they were in any degree
singular in the devoted work which they gave to their country
during the war. The suffragists were earliest in the field because
they were already organized and accustomed to team-work.
Women of all classes and all parties threw themselves with zeal
and efficiency into every kind of useful patriotic work. Indus-
trial women were beyond all praise, working as they had never
worked before, early and late, Sundays and weekdays, to supply
the armies with every kind of military equipment. Everyone who
came into contact with them bore testimony to their splendid
efficiency in departments of skilled work from which before the
war they had been rigidly excluded. In March 1915 the Govern-
ment concluded an Agreement with the trade unions, known as
the Treasury agreement, to suspend during the war, in face of the
national emergency, the rules excluding women from most of the
skilled trades. The Treasury on its part gave a promise not to
use the women as a reservoir of cheap labour, and agreed to give
women the same wages as men for the same output. This gave
an important stimulus to the principle of equal pay for equal
work, and went some way also in the direction of establishing
industrial freedom for women. The courage of the women in the
dangerous trades was as marked as their .efficiency. On one oc-
casion 26 women were killed and 30 injured by an explosion;
those who remained uninjured displayed the greatest coolness
and discipline, and were prompt both in helping the wounded and
in continuing the work of the factory. The legend of the innate
timidity of women was thus undermined. The tide in this direc-
tion rose so high that even Mr. Asquith was floated by it, and in
speaking in Oct. 1915 in the House of the heroic death of Edith
Cavell, he said: " She has taught the bravest man among us a
supreme lesson of courage; yes, and there are thousands of such
women, but a year ago we did not know it."

All through 1916 evidence of the conversion of former oppo-
nents of women's enfranchisement poured into the suffrage offices.
Many of these conversions were of M.P.s, eminent leaders of the
press, railway managers, commercial and financial magnates.
Liberals very often pleaded militancy as an excuse for their for-
mer blindness; Conservatives, in the main, said simply: " I
formerly opposed the granting of the vote to women; I thought
men by themselves maintained the state; I was wrong; the
women have served their country so magnificently that hence-
forth I shall support their having the vote."

There is no doubt that by 1915-6 the country was by a great
majority favourable to the enfranchisement of women. Never-
theless it would have been impossible to induce Parliament to
pass a great Reform bill during the war if it had not been that the
electoral position of millions of men, caused by their services to
their country, was so anomalous as to amount to a public scandal.
The parliamentary register, by the direct orders of the Govern-
ment, had not been revised since 1913. By 1916 it was completely
out of date. By-elections, had "proved its unrepresentative char-
acter and it would have been a moral impossibility to take a
general election upon it. There were at this time the names of
about 8,000,000 men on the register. Of these nearly 7,000,000
qualified as occupiers. The occupation franchise necessitated
that the qualifying premises should have been continuously
" occupied " by the voter for 12 months since the last isth July.
This meant that a large proportion of the 5,000,000 young men
who had voluntarily joined the New Armies since Aug. 4 1914
would, in consequence of their patriotic services, have lost their
claim to the parliamentary vote. The men facing death



the very men to whom the country was most indebted, would be
voteless, whilst those who had evaded similar sacrifices retained
their electoral qualification. The position was intolerable, but
it was not at first clear how best to amend it. Proposals were
made by some M.P.s to create a new franchise based on naval
or military service. But this received little general support. The
questions: "Why exclude industrial service?" and "What
about the services of women?" received no satisfactory answer.
Mr. Asquith's Government repeatedly tried to deal with the
situation by Special Register bills. These efforts were unsuc-
cessful. Each successive proposal was rejected by the House of
Commons with growing symptoms of exasperation. The House
wanted a Reform bill,; it demanded a new electorate on demo-
cratic lines. The Government wanted a Reform bill too, but
appeared to believe they could get one to their liking by calling it
a Special Register bill. It was long before they abandoned their
efforts to get one thing by calling it another. On Aug. 14 1916
Mr. Asquith, on introducing yet another Special Register bill,
announced his conversion to woman suffrage; he based it on the
ground that when the war was over it would be necessary to re-
vise industrial conditions and that in his view women had a
special claim to be heard on the many questions which would
directly affect their interests. It was obvious that this was no
new condition. Ever since Parliament existed measures had come
before it vitally affecting the well-being of women, but on which
they had no constitutional means of making their claims heard.
But it was not the business of suffragists to point this out. The
main difficulty at the moment arose from the plausible plea that,
however desirable parliamentary reform might be, it was not the
time during the greatest war in history, with the issue still
hanging in the balance, to recast the representative system of the
country. The reply has just been indicated. The new register
and the new qualifications were needed at once unless millions of
the most desirable male citizens were to be disfranchised. A good
deal of iteration was needed to hammer this into people's heads;
and to the end, " This is not the time," continued to be the only
effective weapon used against women's enfranchisement.

Mr. Walter (later Lord) Long found a way out of the impasse.
He suggested the appointment of a non-party conference, con-
sisting of members of both Houses, selected and presided over
by the Speaker, to consider the whole subject of electoral re-
form including woman suffrage. Mr. Asquith concurred and
the House agreed. The conference began its sitting in Oct. 1916
and handed in its report on Jan. 28 1917. In the interval ME.
Lloyd George had succeeded Mr. Asquith as Prime Minister, a
change very favourable to immediate action in the direction of
woman suffrage. The Speaker's conference unanimously recom-
mended a new franchise for men amounting practically ,.tp
manhood suffrage; for women it recommended, but not unani-
mously, household suffrage, including wives of householders, a
higher, age-limit for women and their admission to the university
franchise. This was the scheme subsequently adopted by Parlia-
ment. The object of the high age-limit (30) for women was to
produce a constituency in which male voters were in a substan-
tial majority. It was believed by suffrage members of the con-
ference that the acceptance of this was essential to success.
The anticipated proportion of women to men in the new elec-
torate was as 2 to 3. This expectation proved practically correct.
The new register published in 1919 gave the exact numbers:
men 12,913,160; women 8,479,156. It may here be mentioned
that the United Kingdom is the only country, out of the 28
where women are 'enfranchised, which created a difference in
the qualifications for men and women.

The parliamentary history of the measure based on the recom,-
mendations of the Speaker's conference may, as regards woman
suffrage, be here sketched. Within a fortnight of his becoming
Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George intimated to the leaders of
the N.U.W.S.S. that he was keen to go forward at once in the
direction of women's enfranchisement. This was a month before
the Speaker's conference handed in its report. The object was
to get an agreed measure supported by every party in the House.
This was achieved. On March 28 1917 Mr. Asquith moved a



1038



WOMAN SUFFRAGE



resolution in Parliament calling on the Government to introduce
a Representation of the People bill based on the recommenda-
tions of the Speaker's conference. Woman franchise was the
subject of all the speeches, and the leader of every party sup-
ported the enfranchisement of women; the opposition was of
the feeblest, and the motion was carried by 341 to 62.

When the bill (see WOMEN, LEGAL STATUS or) was debated,
the second reading was carried by 329 to 40, and Clause 4 (en-
franchising women) was passed by 385 to 55, or 7 to i, with a
majority within each party into which the House was divided;
and again in the last trial of strength the anti-suffrage Die-hards
were reduced to a mere handful, the numbers being 214 to 17.
After this the N.U.W.S.S. felt the ground sufficiently solid be-
neath their feet to place a new weight upon it, and, in conjunc-
tion with many other women's societies, they urged that the
local government franchise for women should be amended on
the same principle which the House had already accepted for the
parliamentary franchise namely, to include not only house-
holders but wives of householders. This was at first resisted
by the Government, but suffragists outside the House and even
many anti-suffragists worked vigorously for it and prevailed.
The Government gave way, and the amended clause was accepted
on Nov. 14 without a division.

The anti-suffragists in the Lords were a more formidable group
than in the Commons. Lord Curzon, president of the Anti-
Suffrage Society, was the leader of the House and chief represen-
tative of the Government. The inclusion of women in the bill was
vigorously resisted in the early stages of the bill by Lord Bryce
and Lord Balfour of Burleigh; but there was no real fight upon
it until the committee stage was reached and the women's clauses
came on. After various skirmishes the battle was joined, an
anti-suffrage amendment was moved, and there was a full-dress
debate on Jan. 8, 9 and 10, 1918. Lord Curzon wound up the
discussion. His speech, for the first five-sixths of it, was a tolera-
bly familiar anti-suffrage oration, but the last sixth was cast in a
different mould. He reminded the peers that the House of Com-
mons was the sole constitutional representative of the feelings of
the country; that in the Commons woman suffrage had been sup-
ported by large majorities of every party, " including the one to
which most of your lordships belong." He invited them to con-
template what would happen if they came into collision with the
other House on such a question as the representation of the peo-
ple. He elaborated this point with skill, and ended by saying
that to reject the clause would be to embark upon a conflict in
which the Lords were certain to be worsted. He declined to be
responsible for such a catastrophe, and announced his intention
of not voting either for or against the amendment. This was the
supreme moment for all suffragists present. They felt at once
they were safe without disastrous conflict. The division was:
for the clause, 134; against, 71. Thus ended the so-years' strug-
gle of British women for political liberty. The royal assent was
given on Feb. 6 1918. The women's task had been a long one,
but they were able to look back upon it with satisfaction. They
had accomplished it without one scintilla of direct political power
and without appeals to party passion. Their appeal had been to
common sense and experience. They challenged their opponents
to produce one instance of disastrous consequences following
upon the women's vote. Moreover, they had not split the coun-
try into rival factions, for the bill was carried by the consent and
cooperation of all parties.

Those who had worked for woman suffrage quickly perceived
the difference it had made in the attitude of Parliament on al-
most every proposal which came before it. The parliamentary
atmosphere completely changed. Measures for which women's
societies had been working unsuccessfully for years, such as the
Nurses' Registration bill, and an amended Midwives' bill, were
taken up as Government measures, and passed through all their
stages without difficulty. The grille in front of the ladies' gallery
was removed, and women were admitted to the strangers' gallery.
By the spontaneous action of the Government a bill was passed in
Nov. 1918 to render women eligible to sit in Parliament. It was
not in time to be of much use at the general election which



followed in about a fortnight, but Viscountess Astor was re-
turned for Plymouth in Nov. 1919 and Mrs. George Wintring-
ham (widow of the previous member) for the Louth division of
Lines, in Sept. 1921. The increased number of women local
electors gave a great impulse to the election of women as town
and county councillors and the number of women chosen as
mayors steadily increased.

The report of the Lambeth Conference 1920 showed that the
Anglican communion was breathing the new atmosphere created
by the women's vote. It acknowledged that in the past the
Church had undervalued women and had too thanklessly used
their work. It slated the belief of the Conference that the
Church would be strengthened by making freer use of the spirit-
ual gifts of women, and recommended the opening to them of
the diaconate, definitely affirming that the diaconate is an " or-
der," though a minor one, and that a woman appointed to it is
not merely " set apart " but " ordained."

These changes vary in importance, but they are significant in
that they all point in one direction giving wider scope to the
powers and responsibilities of women and recognizing the use
of women's work in every well-ordered state.

Before the general election of Dec. 1918 Mr. Lloyd George
and Mr. Bonar Law had given a public promise, if returned to
power, " to remove all the existing inequalities in the law between
men and women "; but when the new Parliament opened there
was no indication in the King's speech of proposed legislation in
fulfilment of this pledge. The Labour party, therefore, in the
session of 1919 introduced a measure called the Women's Emanci-
pation bill, completely removing every legal inequality between
men and women and giving women the vote on the same terms as
men. This they carried, notwithstanding Government opposi-
tion, through all its stages in the House of Commons; the Govern-
ment, however, defeated it in the Lords, but not without pro-
viding a substitute the Sex Disqualification Removal Act. This
did not reopen the franchise question, but it gave women the
right to study and practice law in both its branches, to act as
magistrates and to sit on juries. It also made it clear to the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge that they had the power to
admit women to degrees and membership. Oxford availed itself
of these powers without delay, but Cambridge in Dec. 1920 de-
clined to take a similar step by 904 votes to 712, and repeated
the refusal twice in 1921.

BRITISH DOMINIONS OVERSEAS

The granting of woman suffrage in Canada was almost simul-
taneous with its victory in England. It was first adopted in the
provinces (except Quebec) in 1916, and by the Dominion in 1917.
Canada was well in front of the mother country in the matter of
the eligibility of women. Miss MacAdams was elected to the
Legislature of Alberta entirely by the votes of soldiers on duty
in England and France in July 1917. The first Woman Suffrage
Act for the Dominion limited the vote to women who had near
relatives serving overseas. Full woman suffrage followed very
quickly and almost without opposition in March 1918. In Feb.
I92r Mrs. Mary Ellen Smith of Vancouver was chosen as Speaker
of the British Columbian legislature. She, however, declined the
speakership, but took office as a member of the Cabinet.

New Zealand had enfranchised its women in 1893, and enfran-
chisement followed in the Commonwealth of Australia in 1902;
therefore, with the exception of S. Africa, all the great self-
governing overseas dominions of Britain have given political
freedom to women. In March 1921 Mrs. Cowan was elected to
the Parliament of Western Australia, the first woman M.P. to be
elected in Australia.

Jamaica, S. Rhodesia and British East Africa gave votes to
women in 1919 and 1920.

A strong effort was made by Indian women, supported by the
Aga Khan and the Begum of Bhopal, to induce Parliament to
incorporate in the Government of India Act the principle of
woman suffrage. This effort was unsuccessful but not fruitless;
important support was given in the House of Commons, and the
Act, as finally passed, specifically left the question of woman suf-



WOMEN



1039



frage to be decided, province by province, by the elected Legisla-
tures of India herself. The newly created constituencies there-
fore have the power, when they choose to use it, of recognizing
the full citizenship of women.

UNITED STATES

American women had been the earliest to make a definite