SECOND READING. (Hansard, 20 May 1889)

* THE EARL OF MEATH
My Lords, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, I desire to emphasize the fact that I do not ask your Lordships to endorse any new principle. I only ask you to extend a principle which has been already sanctioned by Parliament—namely, that women are fit to carry on administrative work. Parliament has already given its sanction to the election of women to School Boards and Boards of Poor Law Guardians; and I think it will be allowed that, in many instances, very valuable and excellent work has been performed by the ladies who have served on those bodies. It may be said that if women are permitted to become County Councillors the next thing will be that they will have to be admitted to Parliament. I at once say that, for myself, I should very much deprecate any such step as that. But I do not think there can be any argument founded on that suggestion in reference to the fitness of women to deal with questions of haute politique or questions of political importance. The work of County Councils is very much like that of School Boards and Boards of Guardians. Their work is administrative in the strictest sense of the term. The London County Council, of which I have the honour to be a Member, has 486 to look after 23 baby-farms, and women whose administrative powers are so great would be best qualified to look after those farms. In addition to this, we have to look after boarded-out children and industrial schools, in which at least half of the children are girls. Then, in addition to that, we have to look after 10,000 lunatics, half of whom also belong to the weaker sex; and in all these and cognate matters I maintain that women are just as good administrators, if not better, than men. Women have shown their powers in carrying out details of this kind in domestic and social work, and I do not think, my Lords, that, having already admitted them to School Boards and Boards of Guardians, there would be any revolutionary step in asking that they should be admitted to sit in County Councils. In the London County Council we have had some experience of how the three ladies who have been elected to that body have worked; and the Council has expressed an opinion a few days ago in favour of the admission of women to the County Councils by the vote of a majority of 48 to 22, or more than 2 to 1. Most of the work that those ladies are asked to perform is of the kind I have mentioned. I am myself Chairman of one of the Committees, and I must say that the ladies have always given me the very greatest assistance in carrying out our work. It is a subject of deep regret to me that, in consequence of the recent decision in the Courts of Law, the lady members of the London County Council will have to retire, and that that body will be deprived of their valuable assistance. I hope, therefore, your Lordships will permit this Bill to be read a second time, and I think if we consider what 487 has been the composition of Municipal Boards in this country in the past, we must acknowledge there is much room for improvement. Certainly, I believe that women would be less open to the temptation of jobbery than are some of the men who often get elected upon these Boards. My Lords, I would ask you to remember what women have done for the social needs of this country and what they are doing in that direction. There are some sad festering social sores in the body politic; and amongst those who are earnestly labouring to cure or mitigate those evils a large majority are women. Lord Shaftesbury once said, after returning from one of his almost daily journeys to the East of London, that he was astonished at the patience of the people, and that if it were not for Christian influences he believed the West would be sacked by the East. My Lords, I believe that what Lord Shaftesbury said in that respect was true; but I venture to assert that it is the women of England who stand between the Government and revolution. I have some knowledge, my Lords, upon the subject of which I am speaking, and I know that, although an immense amount of good work is being done by the missionary efforts of the Church and other religious bodies in our large towns, those who are engaged in that work would be the first to acknowledge that their efforts would be to a great extent ineffectual but for the aid of the thousands of devoted women who co-operate with them. It may be said, my Lords, that women have been tried in public work, and that, occasionally, they have failed; but I do not think that argument can be really urged against the admission of women to the County Councils or any other public body. I would ask, my Lords, whether it can be asserted that the municipal and other administrative bodies in this country, which are composed exclusively of men, are of such exceeding excellence that there is a danger of their being impaired or deteriorated by the devotion of women? And if some women have shown too much enthusiasm and zeal in what they have set to work about, and have done it in an injudicious manner, it has been, perhaps, in no small degree owing to the fact that they have been denied, until recent years, an opportunity of acquiring practical experience in 488 connection with such bodies. I believe, my Lords, there is a body of men not very far from this House who might take a lesson, to some extent, from those women. Women should not be encouraged to waste their efforts, but to guide them in a useful direction, and their enthusiasm and zeal would be of invaluable service to them. There can be no question that there has sprung up of late years amongst the leisured class of women an ardent desire to be of some use in the world, to do some good before they pass away, to be something more than mere ornaments of life. Such a laudable desire should be encouraged by the nation. That tendency which we see on all sides should be given a legitimate opening. The amount of unpaid religious, philanthropic, and social remedial work which is being carried on by women is enormous. Witness the labours of such women as Miss Octavia Hill, Miss Robinson, Miss Weston, Miss Davenport Hill, Miss Ellice Hopkins, Miss Potter, Miss Kinnaird, Miss Cobden, Miss Rye, Miss Cons, Miss L. Twining, and a hundred others whom I might mention. We may or may not approve the objects those ladies have in view. We may or may not believe in their discretion or their wisdom; but we cannot but respect the self-sacrifice and the devotion with which, in their different lines, and with the best powers they possess, they are voluntarily labouring for the good of others. Such self-sacrifice, such devotion, such faith, cannot fail to make its influence felt on a selfish and cynical world. If there is much to lament in the present condition of society, if there is alienation of class from class, if the rich man fears the poor and the poor man hates the rich, if the world is out of joint, and we cry in our despair that faith and virtue, honour and love, sympathy and brotherly kindness have vanished from the face of the earth, if in our moments of despondency and of weakness we should be tempted to exclaim that our upper classes care for nothing but sport and the gratification of selfish pleasure, that our middle classes are lost to all higher aims than the pursuit of wealth, and that our working classes are wallowing in the mire of drunkenness and violence, let us but turn to the work of these noble women, and of others who are labouring in similar undertakings, for the spiritual, 489 moral, or material welfare of their fellow creatures, and we shall be forced to confess that the women of England refuse to despair of the world, and that, holding aloft in the darkness which surrounds them the beacon light of their own virtue and self-sacrifice, they are setting an example worthy of imitation, and are acting the angel's part in their devoted efforts to guide the footsteps of mankind into higher and nobler paths. Therefore, I say, my Lords, that such women are worthy of the highest honour their country can bestow upon them, and are we to refuse to such women as those the right to share in the management of those social matters in which they take so deep an interest, in which they are so useful, in which they are so well versed, and which form so important a part of municipal government? I hope not. I trust that the House by its vote to-night will express its conviction that women by their great work in social reform have earned the right to a voice in the local government of their country, and to engage for its benefit in this social war.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
put the Question, that the Bill be read al second time, and declared, without challenge, the not contents have it.

§ * EARL FORTESCUE
My Lords, I rise to move the Amendment of which I have given notice.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The Bill has been rejected without a Division.

§ EARL FORTESCUE
I had not understood that. Is it really so?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I must call the noble Earl's attention to the fact that I waited for some time before I put the Question. I said the not-contents had it, and my decision was not challenged.

§ EARL FORTESCUE
I thought I should have been called upon. I have the misfortune of being rather deaf and partially blind, and I was not aware of what was going on.

§ EARL GRANVILLE
Perhaps, my Lords, you will allow the Question to be put again.

* THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY
I would suggest that, as the noble Lord was unaware of what was going on, the Question should be allowed to be put again. I understand some of your 490 Lordships to say they did challenge the Division.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I did not hear the challenge.
Question again put.