SECOND READING.

HC Deb 07 April 1875 vol 223 cc418-89

Order for Second Reading read.

MR. FORSYTH

I rise to move the second reading of this Bill. It is extremely short, consisting of only a single clause. Its object is to enable women who are not under the coverture of marriage, if they are rated householders in boroughs, or possessed of sufficient property qualifications in counties, to vote at the election of Members of Parliament. I say, emphatically, "women not under the disability of coverture," for I am strongly opposed to the claim of married women to vote at Parliamentary Elections, and there is nothing in the present Bill which will enable them to do so. The measure will remove not the disqualification of status, but only the disqualification of sex. On this point no doubt can exist in the mind of any competent lawyer. In 1869 an Act was passed for shortening the period of residence as a qualification for the municipal franchise, and the 9th section provided that wherever words occurred which denoted the masculine gender, the same should be held to include females with reference to the right to vote for councillors, auditors, and assessors. It has, however, been decided by the Court of Queen's Bench, on a Quo Warranto, that that section does not enable married women to vote. The Bill which I introduced last year contained a distinct Proviso that married women should not be allowed to vote. I inserted it because, in previous debates on the subject, there was a lamentable confusion of thought in the minds of many hon. Members who opposed the Bill, and they erroneously imagined that it would destroy the foundations of society, introduce discord into married life, and wholly alter the relations of the sexes domestically and socially. Such an argument was entirely irrelevant; but it produced an effect on the mind of even so astute and sagacious a Gentleman as the late Member for Leeds (Mr. Baines), who, on the day after the debate, wrote a letter to The Times explaining how he had been puzzled and misled. I have now omitted the Proviso because the Common Law, apart from a statutory declaration, would suffice to prevent married women from voting for Members of Parliament. Mr. Goldwin Smith, in a pamphlet which has been printed at the request of some Members of Parliament—so it is stated in the preface—and industriously circulated, asserts that the limitation of the operation of the Bill to unmarried women was introduced by me only to hoodwink the House of Commons. I cannot find words to express my indignation at a statement so calumnious and unfounded. To what straits must the ex-Professor at Oxford have been reduced, when he was obliged to resort to an assertion so absolutely untrue! This is no Party question, as clearly appears from the names at the back of the Bill. There are my own name and that of the right right hon. and learned Gentleman the Recorder of London, who sits on the Ministerial side, and the names of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) and of the hon. Baronet the Member for Fife (Sir Robert Anstruther), who sit on the Opposition side of the House. In like manner the opponents of the measure comprise both Conservatives and Liberals. It is impossible, indeed, to predict from the general political bias of any hon. Member how he will vote upon this question, though I believe a majority of the unmarried men in the House will vote against the Bill. I will not stop to explain the reason, though I believe I could easily do so. No, Sir, I should be ashamed to make this a Party question. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone), who said, on a former occasion, that it would be a sin against first principles to make this a Party Question; but one of the main reasons urged by the ex-Professor Goldwin Smith against the Bill is that it is brought in by the Conservative Member for Marylebone. I may mention that Mr. Goldwin Smith had been, before I announced my Bill, a strong advocate of this measure. As regards the growth of public opinion in favour of the measure, I assert fearlessly that there has been no question introduced by a private Member which has in so short a time made so rapid a progress. Indeed, I do not believe that even the anti-Corn Law agitation increased with such accelerated velocity as the agitation in favour of this measure has done since the subject was first introduced to the House. This is shown by the number of Petitions for the Bill, which increased from 75, with 50,000 signatures, in 1858, to 1,404, with more than 430,000 signatures, in 1874. Between the years 1869 and 1873, exactly four Petitions were presented against the Bill, and these proceeded from Scotch municipal burghs, where women have no votes at all. Three of them came from the town councils of Elgin, Nairn, and Linlithgow—immortal burghs! which are destined in the history of this question to be as famous as the three tailors of Tooley Street. They remind me of Mrs. Partington trying, in her pattens and with her mop, to push back the Atlantic. I venture to say that the Bill will not be lost in consequence of the opposition of three trumpery Scotch burghs. This year no fewer than 30 town councils in Scotland have petitioned in its favour, and not one against it. The numerous Petitions signed by women in favour of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill and the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, show that women are not averse from petitioning the House on subjects interesting to the sex, and it will not do for my hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope) to assert that women are either indifferent to the matter, or that their retiring modesty will not allow them to sign Petitions in favour of the present measure. With respect to the attitude of the Members of the late and of the present Ministries as regards the Bill, I wish to point out that in 1867 four Members of the late Government voted for and seven against it, while of the Members of the present Government one voted for and 11 against it. In 1873, three Members of the late Government voted for the Bill and 11 against it; and of the Members of the present Government eight voted for the Bill and eight against it. A few years ago, the right hon. Gentleman who is now First Minister of the Crown said, that in a country which was governed by a woman, where women constituted a portion of one of the estates of the Realm as Peeresses in their own right, and where women could be churchwardens and overseers of the poor, and occupy various other official positions, he did not see what possible objection could be urged against such a proposal as was embodied in the Bill now under consideration. Afterwards, in answer to Mr. Gore Langton, the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the exclusion of women from the franchise as an anomaly which he believed to be injurious to the country, and which he trusted to see removed by the wisdom of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone) cannot be quoted in terms of such strong approval; but in 1871 he made a speech distinguished not only by eloquence—that is a truism, and applies to all his speeches—but by candour and fairness, and well worthy the attention of the House. The right hon. Gentleman said he would not give a positive opinion on the subject, but he had heard no conclusive reason why we should not borrow an idea from the law of Italy, where a woman was allowed to exercise the franchise through a deputy or friend; it might be found on examination to be a good or a bad plan; but it was one worth discussion; and he admitted that there was more presump- tive ground for a change in the law than some of the opponents of the Bill were disposed to admit. These were weighty words, and I am thankful the right hon. Gentleman went so far. I will now proceed to adduce some of the arguments for the Bill, and notice some of the objections against it, and I do so the more fully because I may not have an opportunity of reply, for I have no wish to have the Bill talked out, but to have a division upon it. I ask the House to give it a second reading; first because, since the passing of the Reform Act, it has been a constitutional principle that taxation and representation are reciprocal and correlative terms, and that no class ought to be taxed without having a voice in the selection of the persons who are to tax them. At present only six classes of persons are excluded from the franchise—paupers, lunatics, criminals, minors, idiots, and women; the first four may recover or gain the electoral status; and only idiots and women are permanently excluded. I do not think that women will feel themselves flattered by being placed in such a juxtaposition. No class ought to be excluded from the political franchise, because exclusion involves the neglect of their interests. Let hon. Members compare the position of the working classes before and after their enfranchisement; before, they had little influence; but now no barometer is more sensitive to the influence of the weather than hon. Members are to the opinions of the working men. For centuries the legislation of man towards woman has been the legislation of the strong over the weak; man has said, in the proud consciousness, of physical superiority— Hoc volo, sic jubeo, stet pro ratione voluntas. Up to 1870, while a man lost the control of his property only through the crime of felony, a woman lost the control of hers by marriage, and could not assert her right to the custody of her infant children; her right to appoint guardians to those children; her right, though a widow, to a voice in the education of those children; her right to dispose of her property by will; and her right to protection against excessive employment in factories and degrading employment in coal mines. Only of late years has tardy and imperfect justice been done; and the obvious reason why woman has so long been placed at a disadvantage is that she has been a cipher in political arithmetic, and that man has disregarded her wishes, because she could not give effect to them by her vote. How many years did Serjeant Talfourd labour in this House to give a mother the custody of infant children as against a drunken and profligate husband? When the mother had been given the custody of them up to the age of 7, 30 years elapsed before the age was increased to 16. Even now a woman cannot appoint a guardian for her own child. In a case in which father and mother are of different religious persuasions, if the father is dead a child brought up in the religion of the mother up to the age of 10 or 12 years may afterwards, on an application to the Court of Chancery, be forced to be brought up in the religion of the deceased father. The widows of farmers have great difficulties in retaining and procuring farms because they have not votes, landowners believing, in spite of the Ballot, that property will still have influence. On this ground, as is stated in a letter which I have received from Scotland there is a strong feeling there in favour of the Bill. The exclusion of women is also unjust because they are called upon to bear local burdens equally with men, and when Bridgwater, convicted by a Commission of extensive bribery, was required to pay a rate of 3s. in the pound, the women who were ratepayers, but were not electors, complained bitterly of their being made to pay for bribery which they had nothing to do with. Among the public questions in the settlement of which women are entitled to a voice there are the custody of infants, marriage and divorce, marriage with a deceased wife's sister, the control of property, the preservation of infant life, sanitary legislation, factory legislation, Mines Acts, Workshop Acts, local taxation, and education. Four-fifths of the measures that are now before Parliament are such as directly affect women, on which they are entitled to be heard, and on which their opinion would be valuable. When a large number of persons make demands which are not in themselves unreasonable, they ought as far as possible to be conceded; and, certainly, a vast number of women desire the franchise. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James) spoke of the demand as being the crotchet of a noisy few, whom he denominated "itinerant and restless politicians" and "social failures:" but what did he mean by that term? Was Mrs. Somerville a "social failure?" Petitions have been presented in favour of this Bill, signed by the Dowager Countess of Buchan, Viscountess Combermere, Lady Julia Lockwood, Lady Helen Stewart, the Honourable Miss Canning, Miss Florence Nightingale, and many other distinguished ladies. Are they "social failures?" Is Miss Eye, who has led bands of emigrants across the Atlantic, a "social failure?" No fewer than 3,000,000 women in this country are earning their bread by manual or mental labour, and there are in business in the metropolis between 4,000 and 5,000 women, who are employers of labour. It may be that the ladies whom hon. Members of Parliament meet in drawing-rooms are not generally in favour of this Bill; but they are hardly fair judges of the wants of their poor struggling sisters. I plead not for the minions of fortune nursed in the lap of luxury and sheltered from the wants of poverty and the storms of adversity. I plead not for the rich, but for the poor, who, unsheltered by marriage, have to fight the hard battle of life for themselves. The demand has been conceded in principle by giving the municipal franchise to women; and the arguments by which Lord Aberdare, then Mr. Bruce, attempted to justify a distinction between the Parliamentary and the municipal franchise were weak in the extreme. He said that women ought not to vote at Parliamentary Elections, because no woman had been a great musical composer, and because women had not stood beside the mailed Barons at Runnymede when they extorted the Great Charter from King John; and they did not servo in the Army. If so, the maimed, the halt, and the blind ought not to vote, and it would be just as reasonable to say that women ought not to vote, because they do not shoot partridges nor smoke tobacco. I will propose a test to those hon. Members who think that the Bill, giving the municipal franchise to women, ought not to have been passed. If any hon. Member will bring in a Bill to deprive women of the municipal franchise, he will not get five Members to follow him into the Lobby. Another positive reason for supporting the Bill is, that the Ballot is in operation, and the use of the Ballot has removed the most plausible objection against the granting of the suffrage to women. Under open voting there might appear to be something unfeminine in a woman going to the polling-booth, but now the voting is as solemn as a funeral and as quiet as a Quaker's meeting. The objection to the Bill, based on the alleged inferiority of women, is seldom heard out of the House. I am willing to admit that the average brain-power of women is not equal to that of men; but that is not the question. The question is, whether they are so inferior intellectually to men, and so incompetent to form a judgment about candidates, as not fit to be trusted with a fractional share of the responsibility of electing them. I now pass on to what I believe to be the most serious and formidable of the objections which will be urged against the Bill. The objection that will be most relied upon is a sentimental one, and one, therefore, which it is difficult to encounter by argument or logic. It is said that this measure will change the nature of women for the worse, and make them too masculine. Now, I yield to no one in the desire to preserve the distinctive charm of womanhood, her softness, her purity, her grace; and I wish the feelings and attitude of woman towards my own sex, to be, in all social and domestic relations, those so beautifully expressed by Portia, in Shakespeare— Happiest of all, is, that her gentle spirit Commits itself to yours to be directed, As from her Lord, her Governor, her King. If I thought the effect of this measure would be to deteriorate woman in these respects, while I should consider the claim just, I should consider the right purchased at too dear a price. But I believe the fear to be chimerical, a mere phantom of the imagination. It does not follow that because women could vote, they would become active and ardent politicians any more than men, of whom so many abstain from voting. Take, for instance, my own borough of Marylebone. Although at the last General Election the fate of a Ministry was at stake, there were no less than 11,000 electors whom it was impossible to induce to vote on either side. But, as in the one case, so in the other, the indifference of some constitutes no reason why those who take an intelligent interest in politics should not be allowed to have a vote. Women are generally considered better judges of character than men, and all that they will have to do in voting will be to select from among competing candidates those they think most eligible for Parliamentary responsibility. But it is said that there are ulterior views, and that this is simply the thin end of the wedge. In reply to this, I declare that I have no ulterior views in the sense in which those words are used, and I am inflexibly opposed to the idea that married women should have votes, or that women should sit in Parliament. If we are to refuse what is right, because something which is wrong may be demanded afterwards, it will be impossible to go on with legislation at all; but we stand on firmer vantage ground in resisting what is wrong, when we have granted that which is right. One of the strongest arguments used by the right hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone) when he proposed to disestablish the Irish Church, was that an Established Church in Ireland was in itself wrong, and that having disestablished it the hands of Parliament would be stronger to resist any further measures which it thought to be wrong. If we admit his premise—which I, for one, do not—we must admit also that the deduction he drew from it is logically unanswerable. In one sense, of course, I have ulterior views—I desire that Parliament should take a more comprehensive view of the rights and interests of women. If the votes of women would turn the scale anywhere, that of itself shows that men on that subject are pretty equally divided in opinion, and, presumably, the interests of women would be so far involved that they would be justified in turning the scale. I regret the absence from the House of my right hon. Friend the late Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie), who had formerly deprecated the Americanization of our institutions, and represented that the disposition of American women to agitate had produced a re-action against the granting of the suffrage to women in America. But I find this opinion denied by Mr. Garrison, of Massachusetts, in an account he has given of a conversation on the subject with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster.) Mr. Garrison declared that the movement was never so far advanced as now and never had so many supporters. Everything in America seems to run into exaggeration; but in England we have to legislate for Englishwomen, in whose common sense I, for one, have unbounded confidence. I claim the vote of the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James) in fulfilment of a promise. He said that he would vote for the Bill if one-half of the ladies in Taunton appealed to him to do so. Well, the hon. and learned Gentleman has presented a Petition in favour of the Bill from more than half the ladies. [Sir HENRY James: Householders, you mean.] At all events, my hon. and learned Friend has promised to vote for a Bill, which he has described as fraught with discord to married life, and sapping the foundations of society, if only he were asked to do so by half the women in a small borough in the West of England. Let the House test the strength of the hon. and learned Member's arguments by the offer he has made. He said also that the sympathetic element in women was apt to deprive them of all logical power. I deny the fact; but surely logic is one of the rarest things, even among male electors. How many of the Members of this House are logical? Women may not be good logicians, but they have an intuitive perception of right and wrong, and will vote for the right kind of representative to pass useful measures. The Conservative hon. Member for Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) formerly asked the House to reject this as an ultra-Radical measure; and to show how extremes meet, the ultra-Radical, Mr. Goldwin Smith, said it was a revolutionary proposal, and that if women had votes the free institutions of the country would be destroyed. I will not condescend to answer the absurdities of the ex-Professor, but I will ask my hon. Friend to consider whether woman's submission to authority, her reverence for religion, and her regard for law are elements of a revolutionary nature. The supporters of the Bill have sometimes to encounter ridicule. Argument I can meet, but misplaced ridicule I despise. Not that I object to wit, when it is used to feather the arrow of argument and give force and buoyancy to its flight; and I do not quarrel with Horace for saying, "Ridentem dicere verum Quid vetat?" Perhaps we may hear quoted the lines from Tennyson's Princess— Pretty were the sight, If our old halls should change their sex, and flaunt With Prudes for Doctors, Dowagers for Deans, And sweet girl graduates in their golden hair. But I feel sure that in the House of Commons—an Assembly of Gentlemen—no hon. Member will descend to low and vulgar ridicule, or attempt to show his wit by coarse and silly alliterations, and speak of the "shrieking sisterhood;" language which I was ashamed to read in a newspaper which calls itself one of the enlightened instructors of the people. And now, Sir, I have done. I have pleaded this cause with all the earnestness of settled and deliberate conviction. I wish I could have pleaded it with more eloquence and power. I did wish that the conduct of the Bill should be placed in the hands of some Member of the House who has experience and authority to which I can make no pretension. I thought that the Bill ought to be brought in by some Member like the late Member for Manchester (Mr. Jacob Bright), whose name has so long been honourably connected with the question of Women's Suffrage. But as I was strongly urged to undertake the task, I was willing that others rather than myself should be judges of my fitness to bring forward the measure. In the present Parliament there are many new Members whose opinions on this question are not yet known—and there are many who, I believe, are wavering and quite open to conviction. To them I earnestly appeal. There is hardly any new measure which can be proposed to which there are not some objections, and this is no exception to the general rule. But what I ask is this—place all the objections if you like in one side of the balance, and place in the other the arguments in favour of the Bill—and then calmly and dispassionately ask yourselves which of the two really preponderates. If you find that the arguments for the measure are stronger than the arguments against it, give effect to the conviction of your judgment by your vote. You will thereby gratify the ardent wishes of a great proportion of your countrywomen. You will declare that you do not consider them so intellectually your inferiors that you cannot trust them to have a fractional vote in the choice of their Representatives. You will show that you appreciate at its true worth the fallacy that the possession of the franchise will deteriorate their nature, and you will assert the constitutional principle that taxation and representation ought to be reciprocal, and not altogether divorced, as is now the case with the larger part of the population of this Kingdom. In the days of ancient Rome the Social War was caused by the refusal of the Roman people to grant to the inhabitants of the provinces the Jus suffragii and rights of free citizens. They were compelled to serve in the Roman Armies, and bear the burdens of the proud Republic; but they were not allowed to vote in the election of a Roman magistrate. You know that the provincials were victorious in the contest, and by their loyal allegiance Rome was enabled to become the mistress of the world. If you reject this Bill you will say that women shall bear the burdens of the taxpayer, but shall not enjoy the only privilege which those burdens confer—namely, the possession of a vote. You will not, indeed, have a Social War, but you will have wide-spread discontent. There will be in the minds of one-half of the population of these islands a fixed feeling that they are treated with injustice, and doomed to bear the stigma of inferiority. They will not unnaturally resent the idea that they alone of all the subjects of a Sovereign—who is herself a woman—are to be denied the rights of free citizens of a constitutional Monarchy, and be assured that they will never cease from their demand until this unjust restriction is removed. That it will be removed, sooner or later, I have not a shadow of a doubt; and, if so, it is better soon than late. The history of past legislation shows how unwise it is to resist demands that are just, and to wait until you are forced or shamed into concession. In no long time after such a Bill as mine, if not mine now, is passed, men will wonder at their opposition, and smile at the forebodings which they allowed to haunt their imaginations. They will find that instead of injuring the nature and character of woman they have done something to elevate them both, and make her more lit to be the intellectual companion of man. It is right, just, and expedient to do so; and in the name of Right, Justice, and Expediency, I earnestly ask the House of Commons to consent to the second reading of this Bill.

MR. FRASER MACKINTOSH

said, he wished to remind the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Marylebone, that it was one of the Rules of the House when one hon. Member misrepresented or depreciated another to give an explanation and an apology. Now, he believed the same rule ought to be applied to a case where constituencies were misrepresented or depreciated in a manner calculated to give pain. He was an ardent supporter of the Bill; but he must take exception to the remarks made by the hon. and learned Member which were prejudicial to certain Scottish burghs, inclusive of Nairn, one of the burghs he (Mr. Mackintosh) had the honour of representing.

MR. FORSYTH

said, the words were uttered in the haste of the moment, and he entirely withdrew them.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Forsyth.)

MR. H. CHAPLIN,

is rising to move as an Amendment, That the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the House will, in the first place, allow me to express my sense of the courtesy which I have received from the hon. Grentleman the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Leatham), in giving me precedence upon this occasion, and which has afforded to me and to others the opportunity which was desired, of giving the most practical contradiction in our power to the suggestion that hon. Gentlemen sitting on this side of the House were, generally speaking, in favour of this measure. Having said that, let me add that it is from no wish of my own that I fill the position which I occupy now, and I cannot help feeling that I labour under some disadvantage. The ladies, indeed, or perhaps I ought rather to say, that extremely limited number of ladies who have made this cause their own, are favoured indeed by fortune I think, in. the man whom they have selected to advance and to further their views on this day, and who is no unworthy successor to the champion whom, through the fortunes of an election, they have recently lost from this House. Whilst I, Sir, cannot pretend for a moment to vie with him who was lately their chief opponent, either in his power and practice in debate, or in the weight and authority with which everything coming from Mr. Bouverie was received in this House, and which was the first and natural tribute of a long and honoured and honourable career in this House, Sir, I confess that I have always myself been among the number of those who, from the out-set, regarded this question as one which was scarcely deserving of even our serious consideration. But we live in the days—whether for good or for evil—of rapidly changing opinions, and when I know that many hon. Members of this House, whose opinions I cannot but value, have, at one time or another, voted in support of this measure; when we see, as we have seen in this case, that Leaders upon both sides of this House have given either their absolute or their qualified adhesion to the principles of this measure, then, Sir, I for one am no longer prepared to deny that it is a serious question, and one which deserves the careful attention of the House; and viewing it then in that light, I am prepared to consider it, not alone on, as I think, the somewhat inadequate grounds—the narrow and limited lines, which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Marylebone (Mr. Forsyth) has marked out for us tonight; not alone with regard to its more immediate issues, but as a question of which, if it be carried out to its logical ends, the importance can scarcely be overrated, and which will surely involve us in an absolute and a complete revolution of all the social relations, as well as political views, by which not only we, but the whole world, has been governed, since the earliest ages of History, and the very creation of man. Now, Sir, I know in discussing this question that there is little I fear which is new, and which is left to be said, either against or in support of this measure. My hon. and learned Friend has supplied us this evening with a number of different reasons, some of them plausible in the extreme why he thinks the Bill should become law, and with which in a moment I will endeavour to deal; but I am content to rest my opposition on grounds which I will at once state to the House. I object to this Bill, then, in the first place, because in giving direct political power to women we are embarking upon an experiment for which, in History, so far, not one single precedent is to be found, which, however, it may be regarded, in the minds of dreaming philosophers, or philanthropic Professors, is unknown and untried, and has no place at all in the world of practical politics; and I object to experiments, especially when, as I think, they may best be described as political quackery, being tried in a country with a settled and well understood Constitution like England; my motto would rather be this—Fiat experi-mentum in corpore vili. Secondly, Sir, I oppose it, because I hold it to be our bounden duty to require and to demand at the hands of those who are its supporters convincing and absolute proof that there is urgent necessity for legislation of this kind, before we accept a proposal, which the collective wisdom of ages, the teaching of all religion in every form and under every guise, and, as I believe, the instincts of the whole human race has, on the one hand, never demanded; and, on the other hand, has thought it right to withhold; and I contend that in this case, no such necessity has been established. Again, Sir, I shall resist it, because I know not, indeed, on what ground of consistency we can refuse, if we sanction this Bill, the demand which is certain to follow—for admission for women to these very benches on which we sit at this moment. And, lastly, Sir, I shall oppose it on grounds which are perfectly simple, and which ought, I think, to commend themselves, at all events, to hon. Gentlemen sitting on this side of the House—namely, as another attempt to disturb and enlarge the existing franchise. Now, Sir, taking the last of these points to begin with, it cannot be denied that the Bill of my hon. and learned Friend, modest indeed as it is in dimensions and limited as to its clauses, is in the nature, at all events, of a new and another Reform Bill, and one which proposes to add an indefinite number of voters to the boroughs and counties througout the Kingdom. Now, Sir, the House will remember, that we had a proposal of this kind only last Session—a Bill to extend household suffrage to counties, and we have another one yet to look forward to, in addition to this before the present Session is ended, and that too at a time when, as we ought to remember, this is the second Parliament only elected under the latest Reform Bill, and the first elected under the Ballot. Now, I agree with those hon. Gentlemen who think, that it is the most unwise thing in the world in any country, especially an old country like England, to be for ever speculating upon organic changes of the Constitution. My right hon. Friend at the head of the Government, speaking on the Bill of the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) last year, expressed an empathic opinion to that effect, and therefore on those grounds alone, entirely apart from the general question, I should feel it my duty to resist this Motion this evening. And now, Sir, passing from this to the more special object and purpose contained in the Bill namely, to give the electoral franchise to women, on the same terms and conditions as men, I find it exceedingly hard to believe, that the united experience of the whole civilized world, has been from the commencement erroneous and fundamentally wrong, and yet we can come to no other conclusion that this, if we are to accept the Bill of my hon. and learned Friend. Now, what has my hon. and learned Friend said this evening in support of this view? He has brought up again the old story of the Petitions, which have been laid on the Table, and he seeks to found on that fact, an urgent demand why the Bill should become law. But what is the number of women in England, and what does he think of the ominous silence of those millions of women who have not petitioned in support of his Bill? Does he suppose, and is it possible for us to believe, that if the women of England in reality laboured under a thraldom, so galling as to be insufferable to them, that the signatures to these Petitions would not have been numbered by millions instead of by thousands? Then, again, we have been told of the great and oppressive inequality which exists in the laws as between men and women, and my hon. and learned Friend would have us to believe, that until they have votes, it is hopeless for women to expect anything even approaching to justice and equity at the hands of a Parliament, which is composed of and which is elected solely by men. Now, if that statement were true, if it had even a shadow of foundation, I myself should be the first person to admit that they had strong primâ facie grounds for the claim which has been made; but I deny that it is so, and I protest altogether against the idea that there is either the smallest desire or the intention, on the part of the Imperial Parliament, to do less than justice to women, and I claim, on the other hand, both for the Parliament and for those of whom it is composed, that they are animated by a deep and by a pure desire to deal out full and even-handed justice to all who come before them; be they rich or be they poor, be they young or be they old, or Be they of whichever sex they may belong to. But, then, I am told that this is by no means the whole of the case; and my hon. and learned Friend has advanced a number of arguments, which he doubtless considers conclusive why the Bill should become law. We are told that women pay rates, and enjoy in that respect the same qualifications as men; that they are Peeresses in their own rights; that they can hold manorial courts; that women can be elected as overseers and churchwardens; and, finally, Sir, it is said—though I do not think my hon. and learned Friend used that argument this evening—that a woman sits on the Throne of the country, and that women vote for and sit upon school boards. Now, Sir, the House need be under no apprehension that I am about to discuss in detail, all these arguments which are brought forward. They have been argued and answered over and over again in this House, and they are one and all of them open, according to my mind, to one and the same objection. In theory, Sir, it is true, that if a woman pays rates, if a woman possesses the rights and bears the burdens of property, and is therefore a capable citizen, no adequate reason can be adduced why she should not have a vote in the same way as a man. But then we must go a little bit further than theory, and see where this doctrine would lead us. If the fact that a woman sits on the Throne, and that women vote for and sit upon school boards, is a reason why they should vote, it is, of course, a still better reason why they should sit in this House. Now, my hon. and learned Friend, following the example of all who have gone before him, has evaded this very material part of the question, by saying he treats it as a matter of ridicule. I take issue with my hon. and learned Friend altogether upon that point, and I say that it must be regarded as a most serious part of the question. I have the highest authority, Sir, when I do this. What says Mr. Mill upon this point, himself the original author of the whole of this movement? Mr. Mill, it is true, has pointed out with some care— That the right to share in the choice of those who exercise a public trust is altogether distinct from the right to compete in the exercise of that trust. And, so far, I admit he is right, that the law in this country, while it requires a qualification from those who are to elect Members of Parliament, requires no qualification and places no limitation on those who are to be elected. But nowhere does Mr. Mill say women ought not to compote for this trust; on the contrary, Sir, I find that this passage occurs in his book, which I will read to the House. Mr. Mill says, that— To ordain that any kind of persons shall not be physicians, or shall not he advocates, or shall not he Members of Parliament, is to injure not only them, but all who employ physicians, or advocates, or who elect Members of Parliament. And, again, Sir, if I may read another quotation of which I believe Mrs. Mill is the author, what does she say on this point? Mrs. Mill says— We deny the right of any portion of the species to decide for another portion, or any individual for another individual what is and what is not their proper sphere. The proper sphere for all human beings is the largest and highest which they are able to attain to. What this is cannot he ascertained without complete liberty of choice. Now, Sir, quotations like these, especially coming from the quarter they do, if they have meaning at all, clearly mean this—that they both had it in contemplation, that, sooner or later, women should not only vote, but should be elected as Members of Parliament also. I trust, therefore, Sir, that in future, when this objection is raised, that it will not be simply evaded, but will be met with the argument and the attention which it deserves, and that we may have it explained, if this Motion, indeed, is to be treated in earnest as a serious question. What the disqualification is which rests upon woman, as woman, with regard to a seat in this House, which does not equally rest upon woman, as woman, with regard to the votes, which confer the right to a seat in this House. And now, Sir, I have endeavoured, as far as it lies in my power to do so, to meet and to answer the arguments which have been advanced by my hon. and learned Friend. There remains little further for me to say. I have such reverence for women, such deep respect for their peaceful and unselfish lives, for the purity of all their thoughts, and for that unerring instinct, by which I do believe, in all their aspirations they are guided, that if I was convinced that the suffrage was demanded by any large majority, it would be difficult, indeed, to resist their application. But it is because I am convinced that this agitation which we see being carried on around us in no way represents the wishes or the views of the vast majority of Englishwomen, but rather the restless and discontented longings of a few, and those, it may be, not the happiest or most favoured of their sex, that I will not cease to offer opposition to this mischievous and idle Bill; and claiming, as I do claim, then to speak in the name and on behalf of an overwhelming majority of the women of my country, I move, Sir, with confidence and expectation, the rejection of this most uncalled-for and most unnecessary measure.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Chaplin.)

MR. LEATHAM

Mr. Speaker—Sir, the hon. and learned Gentleman who brought this Bill before the House (Mr. Forsyth) complains that some of those who dispute the claim of women to coordinate political authority with men have indulged in sarcasm and ridicule in place of argument. But, Sir, when it is proposed to set aside the immemorial usage of mankind, surely the burden of proof rests not on those who resist the change, but on those who urge it. And when something is proposed so strange that it has never yet occurred to any member of the human family until we arrived at the enlightened generation of the hon. and learned Gentleman to propose it, surely the primâ facie irony of the situation is more crushing than any sarcasm which human ingenuity can devise. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman think that while mankind has been exploring now for thousands of years, every nook and corner of political experiment, yet that it has never occurred to anyone to suggest the promotion of women to equal political authority with ourselves, is or is not an argument against this Bill? But, perhaps, the hon. and learned Gentleman will say that the immemorial practice of mankind has been founded upon sentiment and not upon reason. Sir, I think it will be an evil day for all of us when we discard sentiment in legislation, especially when we are dealing with our relations towards the other sex. What is sentiment? It is the resultant of a great variety of forces, of which reason is only one, others being respect for authority and custom, the influence of conscience, of common sense, observation, and experience. Now, I do not hesitate to say, notwithstanding what has fallen from the hon. and learned Gentleman, that the concurrent sentiment of both sexes—I speak of the vast majority—is entirely opposed to the principle of this Bill. When any hon. Gentleman rests his vote upon the concurrent sentiment of both sexes, backed by the immemorial usage of the species, I do not think he need be under any very violent anxiety, even if for a moment he permits his reason to repose. But I should be content to base my opposition to the measure upon the attitude towards it of the very sex for whose benefit it is sought. The hon. and learned Gentleman has admitted that women are not great logicians. I think that every one will allow that Nature, speaking generally of the sex, has denied to woman the faculty of very close reasoning; but Nature has given woman another faculty, which, under her circumstances, is perhaps of equal importance—and that is an innate and unerring, and, to the best women, imperative sense of what is womanly. And with all the vehemence of an intuitive perception, I maintain that this sense rebels and protests against the principle of this Bill. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman deny it? It was only the other day that I read a letter in the newspapers, written by an ardent supporter of the hon. and learned Gentleman, in which she bitterly and passionately upbraided her sex for their almost total indifference to this movement. I think her words were, that not one woman in a hundred could be induced to take any interest in it. Is it possible to conceive a more crushing condemnation of the movement itself? Are we asked to enfranchise women in spite of themselves? Every appeal has been made to the foibles of the sex, to vanity, love of change and novelty, and the notion which some women entertain that man is an oppressor. And what is the result? Why, the sense of what is womanly stands firm, and women generally have sot their faces resolutely against their benefactors. The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of the Petitions presented in favour of this Bill. There never was a more conspicuous failure. We all know how Petitions are got up. Let the hon. and learned Gentleman count the number of women in the constituencies, and then compare them with the number of women who have signed these Petitions. I have ventured to oppose this measure before, and I put a Motion on the Paper for its rejection, and, therefore, at times I have drawn upon myself the full stream of the hon. and learned Gentleman's agitation. Meetings have been held in my constituency. Women, charming in everything except the false position which they were betrayed into assuming upon a public platform, have addressed highly sympathetic audiences, who admired the oratory through lorgnettes. And what was the result? I received a memorial signed by 130 persons. I have the honour to represent a constituency of 12,000 electors, and containing 80,000 persons. I have presented to-day a Petition, signed, I am told, by 6,000 persons, or not quite one in every 12 throughout my constituency. Let the hon. and learned Gentleman convince the clients on whose behalf he professes to appear before he attempts to convince this House. Well, Sir, because we confront the hon. and learned Gentleman with sentiment, or, if he will, with ridicule, do not let it be supposed that we are unwilling to meet him in fair argument. I think he has been met in fair argument already by the brilliant speech of my hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Chaplin), and, like him, I decline to argue this broad question upon the narrow and artificial ground selected by the hon. and learned Gentleman. The question before the House is not, shall a few spinsters and widows be admitted to the franchise? but shall woman be declared the political equal of man? The House may at once gather what is the real scope and object of this movement if it recalls what took place last year. The hon. and learned Gentleman has told us that last year he inserted a Proviso in his Bill which should formally exempt all married women from the franchise. What was the result? There was an immediate exclamation, I will not call it "a shriek," from the sisterhood. There was a general erasure of names from the committee, and angry letters appeared in the newspapers from supporters of the hon. and learned Gentleman, in which they stated, with the freedom and courage with which some women approach certain questions, that if the Bill were passed in that shape it would be a Bill for the enfranchisement of a class of women—not being a woman I will use a periphrasis—whose public virtues greatly outshine their private ones. The hon. and learned Gentleman has admitted that if we pass this Bill we shall enact exactly the same franchise as that which would have been established last year with this Proviso. Is the House, then, asked to pass a Bill which, in the language of supporters of the hon. and learned Gentleman, is for the enfranchisement of women of easy virtue? Is this what he means by the removal of the disabilities of women? The House will arrive at the same conclusion with regard to the scope of this movement if it recalls the history of the movement itself. A few years ago, with that indifference—I will not say contempt—with which this House at times appears to regard matters of a purely municipal character, at 3 o'clock in the morning, it flung the municipal suffrage to the clamour of these agitators. Almost simultaneously we gave the school board franchise. We were told at the time when these franchises were conferred that we were not so much as touching the far wider question of the Imperial franchise; and yet, Sir, the municipal franchise was scarcely given when the Imperial franchise was demanded. We are told now that we are not so much as touching the far wider question of the enfranchisement of women irrespective of marriage; and yet I am prepared to show that a parallel movement in favour of giving franchises to married women has already commenced. I hold in my hand a letter which was addressed a few months ago to an hon. Friend of mine in this House. With his permission, and the leave of the House, I should like to read a short extract from it. The writer says— I am writing to ask whether you will allow your name to be inserted in the list of vice-presidents of an influential Liberal-Conservative Society, which is being formed solely for the purpose of obtaining the school board franchise alone for the wives of registered male electors. It is thought a grievance and injustice that mothers of families, whose respectability is guaranteed by their husband's position as a householder, should be indirectly excluded from a trust"—['educational' is written in afterwards]—"already conceded to ratepaying spinsters. If you pass this Bill, what is to prevent this "influential Liberal-Conservative Association" from extending its operations? What is there in this argument which is not applicable to the municipal or Parliamentary franchise? Would not the respectability of married women be guaranteed then by their husband's position as a householder, and would it not be just as great an injustice that they should be indirectly excluded from other trusts? Of course we shall be told, as the hon. and learned Gentleman has suggested, that married women can never be enfranchised in this country, because by the Common Law of England a married woman is placed in a position of subordination to her husband, and of dependance upon him, and that it is of the very essence of our electoral system that electors should be independent and free. But this leads me to the centre and kernel of the whole question. It is impossible to discuss female privileges apart from the consideration of the relations of the sexes in marriage. If marriage were an accident, or merely an incident in the career of woman, it would be different; but when marriage is the ordinary and normal state of woman—the state which, Miss Becker herself tells us, all women regard "either from the side of experience or expectation"—it is simple folly to discuss the question of female suffrages and privileges apart from it. If you give the franchise to women at all, give it first to those women who are discharging the sovereign responsibilities of the sex; who are mothers of families; and who have given precisely those guarantees to law and order which it was the intention of the State in enacting household suffrage to demand from men. Again, Sir, if the sexes are to be declared politically equal, equality of political rights involves equality of political obligations. The right of voting involves the right of being voted for. Political equality means a great deal more than equality from an electoral point of view; it means also equality from a legislative and an administrative point of view. You must have women in this House, women upon that Bench, and women, too, upon the Judicial Bench. The hon. and learned Gentlemen disclaims this. He derides the idea of women sitting in this House; but when you come to political equality between the sexes, I defy him to fix the logical point at which the absurdity begins. Of course, the position of those who are opposed to this measure is that which has already been stated by my hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Chaplin)—namely, that it is not sentiment, or prejudice, or any desire of one sex to domineer over the other, but the highest economy, based upon the Divine law itself, which has resolved the whole sum of human duties into two distinct spheres; not antagonistic, the one inferior and the other superior, but complementary the one to the other, and representing together the ideal of humanity which is dual not single. Under this natural and providential arrangement, those duties which belong to the external world, which are rugged in their character and require the exercise of that practical sagacity which it is not possible any one can obtain without mixing freely with his fellows, fall to the rougher and more rugged sex; while those which are best discharged in the privacy of home, which appeal more to the heart, have fallen to that sex, of whose virtue shrinking modesty is an essential part, and who, in all matters relating to the heart, are a higher and purer sex than ourselves. But when we talk of the duality of the species we are assailed by statistics, which show that there are a number of women in this country, who, in the nature of things, can never marry, and we are asked to provide for them a masculine career. But is it any proof because a woman happens to have failed, from one cause or another, in the rôle of her own sex, that she can adequately discharge the more difficult and less congenial part of man? As I have said, Miss Becker implies that she still regards marriage from the side of expectation; and I think it argues strange poverty of resource in women to assert that there is no career open to them unless they have the career of men presented to their choice. In spite of the march of civilization, there is still some human suffering left in the world. There is still pain enough to soothe, and sorrow enough to solace. It is in this field that women in all ages have been able to satisfy the loftiest ambitions, and, in doing so, have raised themselves, and their whole sex along with them, to a pinnacle of greatness which the best men have envied in vain. Nor is it any argument to say that there always have been women equal to any man in political capacity. As there are always mule birds in every pheasantry, so there are always, as Shakespeare says, women, who, "if they be not caparisoned like a man, have a doublet and hose in their disposition." What should we think of the logic of a logician who argued that because there have been men the equals of any woman in the mangement of children, or of the batterie de cuisine, therefore the nursery and kitchen formed the proper sphere for the exercise of masculine energy? I have observed that even the Queen has been dragged into this discussion. I wish to speak of the Queen with the deep respect and loyalty which I feel; but I must ask whether the Queen is an apt illustration of this theory? Is the Queen a Party politician? Has the Queen to choose between two rival policies? We all know that the Queen rules by the advice of her Ministers, who, thank God! at present are men and not women. And if there be one trait in the character of the Queen which has endeared her to her people more than any other, it is the profound respect which she has always felt for the memory of the Prince upon the guidance of whose masculine intellect she was accustomed to rely. I will not enter at any length into the somewhat invidious controversy raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman as to the comparative political capacities of men and women; but I should like to ask him one question upon this point. How does he explain the fact that we—I speak of the Anglo-Saxons on both sides of the Atlantic—are the only race which is able to point to the permanent success of representative institutions established upon a popular basis? Is it not due to the fact that we are in all probability the most practical and least emotional of nations; that we are almost wholly free from those paroxysms of passion and caprice which have again and again made women of the Latin races upon the Continent? But just in proportion as you introduce into your electoral system the elements which distinguish the Latin races, and the whole race of women, you endanger everything of which in this country we are proud. If these are the arguments which can be adduced against the measure, I want to know what becomes of arguments based on an assumption of abstract right? When my hon. Friend the late Member for Manchester (Mr. Jacob Bright) had charge of this Bill, I think he was wiser in his generation than the hon. and learned Gentleman, for he used to begin by frankly admitting that he could not base his argument upon any question of abstract right. He said—"I am aware that Parliament never yet legislated to satisfy a theory or to establish an abstract right." But the argument in favour of the Bill to-day has been abstract right from one end to the other; and I think the hon. and learned Gentleman will not complain if I proceed to formulate his argument in these words—If sex be no ground for relieving women from the burdens of citizenship, sex can form no justification for refusing them the rights of citizenship. But, Sir, sex is a ground for relieving women from many of the burdens of citizenship. For example, they are relieved from the burden of personally assisting in defence of their country, or of aiding the police in the discharge of their duties, and from the onerous burden of serving upon juries. The hon. and learned Gentleman tells us that because women pay the Queen's taxes, therefore they ought to vote, on the ground that representation and taxation go together. I understand that some women have gone the length of refusing to pay Queen's taxes on that ground. I wonder whether it occurred to them at the same time to renounce the Queen's protection? Do they forget that all women, all un- married women especially, receive from the State an amount of protection far in excess of that accorded to any man, or of any contribution which they are asked to make to the Exchequer? Do they forget, as Shakespeare says, that "Beauty provoketh thieves as much as gold?" The hon. and learned Gentleman has cited the instance of the persons at Bridgwater who have protested against the payment of rates enhanced by the expenses of the local Election Inquiry, on the ground that they were not voters, and had nothing to do with bribery. They might just as well have protested against payment of the police rate on the ground that they were not pickpockets. Then we are told that the suffrage is based upon property, and that property has a vote, whoever holds it. I will not remind the House of the well-worn story of Dr. Franklin and the donkey suffrage; but I may say that the suffrage is not based upon property in this country, or the voting power of the individual would be proportionate to the property he possessed. Nor is it based upon the personal payment of rates in the sense of taxation being linked with representation; or why have we a lodger franchise: and how can the discharge of municipal obligations confer an Imperial privilege? The real intention of the Legislature in prescribing the personal payment of rates as a condition of the suffrage, was simply to draw a line somewhere, and to establish a hedge on the other side of which it might fairly be contended that no one had arrived at that position of independence and intelligence which would alone justify us in giving the Imperial franchise. It is no doubt true, as a matter of antiquarian lore, that representation was originally based upon taxation. Parliament, in those days, had no higher function than to vote Supplies, although they availed themselves of the opportunity now and then to offer sound advice to the Monarch. But we have long ago drifted away from that primitive state of things; and it is trifling to argue this question as if we were still living in the clays of the Plantagenets. The questions which now come before Parliament are of the utmost importance, and of a technical and complicated character. We have questions about the administration of the Army and the Navy, about finance, and ecclesiastical policy, the judicature, and procedure in the Law Courts. What information can women bring to us upon these points! Yet the hon. and learned Gentleman argues as though this great Parliament were assembled for no higher purpose than to legislate about the custody of infants. By all means let such questions be duly and patiently considered; but do not let us remodel our whole electoral system with an eye to the supposed interest which unmarried women take in the loathsome and disgusting question which was glanced at by the hon. and learned Gentleman. We are told that there are certain women's grievances which will never be redressed until women are represented. It is hardly credible, but scarcely one of those grievances to which he referred affect the women whom he proposes to enfranchise. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that women must be enfranchised in order that their grievances may be redressed; and yet the women whom he selects for enfranchisement are those whom the grievances do not touch. It is almost as though my hon. Friend the Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) were to bring in a Bill for the extension of the franchise in counties, on the ground that the grievances of agricultural labourers would never be redressed until they had votes, well knowing that there was a clause in his Bill which would have the practical effect of disfranchising every agricultural labourer. If these grievances of women are as oppressive and patent as the hon. and learned Gentleman has asked us to believe, I want to know why he does not devote some part of his redundant energy and overflowing eloquence to their exposure in this House? I will give the House a reason why this is not done, although I do not suggest that it is the one which actuates the hon. and learned Gentleman. Were these grievances to be brought before this House they would be discussed, and the House would arrive at one of two decisions. It would either decide that they were grievances, and redress them; or it would decide that they were not, and dismiss them. Either course would be fatal to the hon. and learned Gentleman's case for this Bill. The fundamental error of all this reasoning is, that women constitute a class apart in the sense that agricultural labourers or working men constitute a class apart. They do not do so; there is no want of sympathy between men and women; and for all practical purposes women are represented already by their husbands, sons, and brothers. But no one will contend that working men are adequately represented by their employers, or that agricultural labourers are adequately represented by the farmers. The last argument to which I shall advert, is that to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred when he spoke of the Ballot. Perhaps I have some little right to speak on behalf of the advocates of the Ballot. He says the institution of the Ballot has removed the greatest obstacle to female suffrage, because it has put an end to violence at the polls. I am glad to hear from him such valuable testimony to the success of the Ballot. It is quite true that the advocates of the Ballot hoped that its introduction would put an end to all forms of intimidation, and amongst others to that of violence at the polls. And we attached so much importance to this, that we were willing at the time to disregard other evils which the experience of Australia had told us we might expect if the Ballot were introduced. One of these was the greater prevalence of treating prior to the poll. I do not know whether it has had that effect, but I should not be surprised if it has; and I consider that nothing could be more demoralizing than to subject unmarried women to this general treating before the poll took place. So that if the Ballot has removed one objection to female suffrage, it seems to me to have substituted another. I ought, Sir, to apologize for trespassing upon the time of the House so long. I have spoken at some length, because I was anxious to clear myself from the imputation of desiring to dismiss this question lightly. I do not think the question ought to be measured by the amount of emotional inconsequence and hysterical incoherency displayed by some of its advocates. As I have endeavoured to show, it goes down to the very roots of political principle. I have heard that it is desired to secure for women an equal share in the distribution of Garters and ribbons. By all means let them have Garters and ribbons; but if we value the manliness of our institutions and the manliness of our policy, let us keep all the springs and sources of them manly.

MR. SMOLLETT

said, he believed he was not at fault when he said that the first Motion for removing women's disabilities in that House was made in 1867, and he further believed he was equally correct in stating that when the matter was mooted on that occasion it was thought to be a sorry jest. In the same year the House was engaged in the discussion of a huge Reform Bill, which was characterized by its authors and promoters as a "great leap in the dark;" and Members of Parliament at that time could hardly bring themselves to believe that women, who were as a sex wide awake to their own concerns, could have endured these supposed wrongs for so many generations, nay, could have slumbered over them for centuries; and that they had then only for the first time discovered that all the ills to which flesh is heir would be redressed by the admission of a small portion of their sex to the enjoyment of a household or lodger franchise, shared by tens of thousands of the artizans and working classes in this country, most of whom, but for a self-acting registration, would not take the trouble of making a claim for their votes. But what was at that time thought a very sorry jest, had turned out to be a sad reality; for dilettanti statesmen and idle legislators had seemingly resolved that the question should be agitated to the extent of at least wasting one night every Session; and if the promoters of the Bill succeeded in carrying the second reading, it was obvious that several days must necessarily be consumed in its discussion, to the delay of all ordinary business and the detriment of the real legislation of the Session. The Bill, the second reading of which had been moved that evening, was one of the tiniest and puniest measures it had ever been his fortune to criticize. It recited no grievance which its adoption would remedy. It had no Preamble, and yet the Bill had been described by some of the greatest statesmen in the House—notably by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone)—as a measure which he would not countenance, because it was calculated to uproot society from its foundations. He was stated to have made this admission in 1870. As that right hon. Gentleman was Everything by turns and nothing long he supposed the promoters of the Bill expected he would support its second reading on the present occasion. But the earnest opponents of the Bill continued to declare that it was a measure which would disturb the entire structure of society; which would obliterate distinctions which had existed since the commencement of the world, and were still recognized by every civilized community; for— When Adam delved and Eve span, Adam was a bread-winner, and Eve attended to her domestic duties. This was a Bill of organic change, a huge measure of reform, and like all such measures reforming downwards, tending to universal suffrage. Yet the Bill was compressed into six short lines. It simply declared that in certain Acts of Parliament, which it did not specify, wherever the words imported the masculine gender, they should be held to moan the feminine gender—that was the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill. He remembered that in the year 1860, Lord John Russell introduced a Reform Bill into the House of Commons, which consisted of five or six printed pages. That measure did not propose to enfranchise more than the present Bill did, but it was nearly snuffed out on the second reading by an observation made by the then hon. Member for Marylebone (Mr. Edwin James), who, although he supported the proposal, said the Bill was not meant to pass, for he would undertake that his clerk would draw a better Bill for the modest remuneration of three guineas. The laughter that followed that announcement nearly destroyed the Bill, and it was shortly afterwards withdrawn. He thought the draftsman of the present Bill would be well paid by a little sixpence, which was at the rate of a penny a line. Last year there was a Proviso to the Bill, which was contained in one line, stating that married women might be registered, though they should not vote under the Bill. There was no such Proviso in this Bill; and in explanation it was stated that, as by the Common Law, married women were disqualified, the proviso was unnecessary. Well, if this was the case, he contended that both Bills had something in common—both threw a stigma on married life. Both declared emphatically that when a woman married she lost her rights of citizenship—that her duty thereafter was to bear children; that she was the slave of her husband, and part of his goods and chattels; that her rôle in life was altered, and that she must be content— To suckle fools and chronicle small beer. Under this Bill, elderly virgins, widows, a large class of the demi-monde and kept women, of whom, in a large town like this, there must be a great number, would be admitted to the franchise, while the married women of England—mothers, who formed the mainstay of the nation—were rigidly excluded. He had stated that it was only in 1867 that notice was taken of the disabilities of women in the House of Commons; but he was aware that this agitation had been carried on for some years before in the country. That agitation was brought into Great Britain by an importation of turbulent women from America, a country where it had been going on without any good result for something like half a century. Those ladies came over to champion "Woman's rights," and proclaim the equality of the sexes; and to show they had a right to do so, they assumed, or rather usurped male attire—they clad themselves in breeches. They were called "Bloomers." That agitation lasted but a very short time, and why? Because women, as a rule, coveted admiration—the admiration of the male sex. Every woman who entered life expected, and hoped and believed, that one day she would be a bride, the mistress of a household, the mother of a family. Women made use of dress as an attraction to the male sex, for there was nothing so pleasing to the latter as to see a well-dressed woman. The ladies soon discovered that the new costume was not attractive. They saw at once that the pectoral, abdominal, and fundamental development of the sex looked grotesque in male attire. That style of dress was, therefore, soon abandoned. But although this distinctive dress was discontinued, the type of the strong-minded woman still survived. They formed a great organization, but it was not one which could be in any respect formidable—it was nothing like so troublesome as the Tichborne organization which now prevailed. No doubt, associations had been formed by the ladies in almost all the large towns, and lecturers sent round the counties talked a vast amount of rubbish, and the rights of women were constantly paraded. Those women who took up questions which they said appertained to the female sex alone had taken up questions that belonged properly to men, for they had entered into an hysterical crusade against the Contagious Diseases Acts. They championed the right of their fallen sisters to spread disease broadcast among the brave defenders of their country in seaport towns and in camps. The only consolation we had was, that the women in this country who took up these questions were few—not one in 50. Women generally were ashamed of those of their sex who took up this subject. Married women, as a rule, did not care for a Bill like this, because they believed what was said in Scripture, that man wanted a helpmate, and woman the comfort and support of a husband. And yet in all the meetings held throughout the country on the subject, the great argument used was that women ought to have a vote because the sexes were equal—nay, that women were far superior to men. He was not in the habit of attending any of those meetings, but he had read the lucubrations of some of the speakers, and with the permission of the House he would give a specimen of what was said at them. Some years ago a meeting was held at Edinburgh, which was the hot-bed of this agitation, for Edinburgh was a town where strong-minded women "most do congregate." It was one of the most respectable meetings ever held on this subject; it contained a sprinkling of Members of Parliament, the families, he believed, of those Members attended, a number of Professors of the University, and a considerable body of citizens were present. The oratory was most successful. It was of the most sensational character, and was to this effect:—Women were described as something only inferior to angels; men, especially of the lower or the middle classes, as being brutal and debased; and the right of married women to vote in contradistinction to their husbands was insisted upon by almost every speaker. One of the orators present discoursed in something like the following language:—"Go into the wide world—he presumed by that expression the wide world of Scotland was meant— and what is the common language that we hear every day? It is that women, as a rule, are as administrators vastly superior to men. From the Newhaven fishwife to the highest lady in the Realm, women do every duty they undertake far better than men. If we go into general society, what is the purport of the conversation that we hear next morning at the breakfast table? It is this—that the man in the house where the previous evening was spent is a very ordinary fellow, a poor creature; but that 'the grey mare in that household is the better horse.' What is the language which every day meets our ears in ordinary life? It is this—'That woman has made a good wife to him;' that the woman is the real bread-winner, the real head of the household; that but for her labours and her exertions that fellow of a husband would have gone to the gaol or probably to the gallows. All this is admitted by society; but what says the law? The law as at present constituted says that the nobler vessel, the woman, shall be plundered, rifled, robbed, by a thief of a husband."

MR. LYON PLAYFAIR

Could the hon. Gentleman tell us whether he is quoting a speech?

MR. SMOLLETT

The purport of the speech. The speech itself is to be found in the newspapers, and to quote it would take some hours.

MR. LYON PLAYFAIR

Who is speaking, may I ask?

MR. SMOLLETT

You may refer to the newspapers of the time. He might say, however, that it was a Member of Parliament. The orator proceeded thus:—"The man never did, never could gain his livelihood, but no doubt he has a vote, and he is ready to sell it for a pot of beer." All that, of course, the orator added, required reform—we wanted a new Reform Bill, and here we had it, the Bill of the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone. But this Bill would not give a vote to the wretched, rifled, and robbed wife, the husband would have it still, and therefore it would not meet the grievance of which the orator so pathetically complained. Another speaker expressed himself thus:—"No man can truly represent a woman's interests and feelings. John Stuart Mill may write of their wrongs, Professor Masson may make an eloquent harangue in their favour, but no one save a woman herself can find out what is a woman's will." Lord Byron had said— Men with their heads reflect on this or that, But women with their hearts on Heaven knows what. If Lord Byron lived to this day, he would have found out what it was, he would now know that they set their hearts on the lodger franchise. The same speaker went on to say that the cleverest women in Great Britain were lodging-house keepers, he seemed to have a large acquaintance with that portion of the community. He said, very truly, that there were whole streets of lodging-houses in great towns, kept generally by women who were married. Of course, they had drunken husbands. One, indeed, would have supposed that it was a meeting convened by the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), and that the remedy would have been the Permissive Bill. But no; the speaker said that those drunken husbands spent all their time in public-houses, leaving their wives to carry on the whole duty of the household, and yet they had no votes. And why, he asked, should they not have votes? Assuredly, they deserved them better than their drunken husbands. But this was not a Bill to give them votes, and therefore, if it were passed, every one of these excellent women would be as badly off as she was now. He would not now go into the question at greater length; but, in conclusion, he would say that if we were to have legislation for the removal of women's disabilities, this was not a straightforward, honest, and manly way to meet the difficulty. If women, as a rule, were trampled on, thrust aside, tyrannized over by the male sex, as they alleged, let us freely admit the fact and make them ample reparation. If women no longer desired to be helpmates to men, if they thought that their rôle in the world was to compete with men and to surpass them in all the walks of life, let all the Universities in Great Britain be thrown open freely, and let young women and young men compete on equal terms for the honours of University life. They should be permitted to be called to the bar, to hold livings in the Church, to practise medicine and every other profession. They should be named as grand jurors, put upon the bench of magistrates, and compelled to serve as petty and special jurors upon all occasions, even upon coroners' inquests. They should be not merely permitted to vote, they should he admitted to those benches in the flesh, and not kept cooped up as they were now in the cage above the Chair. Peeresses by descent or by creation ought to be summoned by Her Majesty to take part in all the great business of the nation along with the Lords Spiritual and Temporal at the commencement of each Session. Nay, more. This House would not be stepping outside its functions by going up with an humble Address, praying Her Majesty to create a batch of Peeresses to take part in the discussions of the Upper Chamber. And if the administrative power, the genius, the eloquence of women should prove of great service in the Upper House; if these attributes should succeed in leavening the mass of that august but inert Assembly, then we might devise means by which a considerable number should be brought into the House of Commons at the next General Election. That was the sort of legislation we ought to take in hand, if the rights and wrongs of women be as they had been stated by their advocates; but, first of all, let them get rid of that abortion of a Bill, which was simply to say that in some Acts of Parliament which were not specified "men" should mean "women," and "women" mean "men," for that was a sort of language which, as Lord Dundreary had it, no fellow could understand.

MR. STANSFELD

I do not rise to reply to the speech of the hon. Member who has just addressed the House. Attacks which are coarse without being humourous defeat their own purpose, and damage the cause which they are meant to promote. The hon. Member has spoken of the women who rightly or wrongly are interested in this question in terms which I will not condescend to discuss. He has spoken of this question as having been imported by turbulent, fantastically-dressed women from beyond the Atlantic, and has said that it would largely enfranchise women of bad character. If it were necessary I could meet the hon. Member upon that ground, and I should be willing to undertake to expurgate from the Bill any words that could confer such a franchise, and insert others which would prevent its being conferred, on one condition, that the men who frequented the habitations of these sup- posed future voters should also be disfranchised. The hon. Member has had the courage to refer to the question of the Contagious Diseases Acts. In my opinion those Acts form a piece of grossly unjust, unconstitutional, and immoral legislation. ["No," and "Question."] No, I beg the hon. Member's pardon, I have not raised this question, it was raised by the hon. Member opposite. Those Acts would never have been passed if women's voices could have been potentially heard through Representatives whom they might elect to this House. But I am not about to discuss that question. It is not before us to-day, and I have only referred to it on this occasion to object to its having been introduced by the hon. Member. It will come before the House on a future day, and if the hon. Member will be here, and will do me the honour to listen to me upon that occasion, he shall hear in no uncertain terms what I believe I can prove of the character, the operation, and the immorality of those Acts. But I pass with pleasure from the speech of the hon. Member to those of the hon. Members for Lincolnshire and for Huddersfield. Both those speeches were distinguished by argument, by eloquence, and by brilliancy, and against neither of them have I a word to say—with one reserve, that I should have been glad if my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield could have prevailed upon himself to resist the temptation to utter a few bon môts, which it would have been better not to have given utterance to. Those hon. Members stated in their speeches much that was of a remarkable and a hopeful character. They both opposed the proposed legislation on grounds which would make it impossible for them logically even to entertain a proposal of this kind, and yet both of them gave the House to understand that although they did not believe that there was any evidence of women desiring such legislation, yet if a proposal of this kind were generally supported by the women of this country, they might modify their views on the subject, and might even vote for the Bill.

MR. CHAPLIN

I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. What I said was that there would be a difficulty in resisting the application.

MR. STANSFELD

I did not take the hon. Member's exact words down. I understand, now, that what the hon. Member means is that it would increase the difficulty of resistance, and not, as I understood him, that it would have an operation upon his own mind.

MR. CHAPLIN

I had no intention to convey that impression in the language I used.

MR. STANSFELD

I accept the explanation of the hon. Member. Both of the hon. Members said, and said quite reasonably, that it was for the supporters of the Bill to prove their case, and called upon them to show that there was a claim of right or expediency, and that there were conditions of sufficient urgency to justify Parliament in acceding to the demand. Well, I will endeavour, and, I hope, not at great length, to comply with this reasonable demand, because I for one seriously believe that what we now ask for would improve the conditions of the representation in this country, and would exercise a beneficial influence upon our Imperial legislation. I will not enter into the question of abstract right. If the House of Commons is not prepared seriously to entertain the proposal before it, no demonstration on my part of the abstract right will serve to convince it. But if, on the other hand, the time should arrive when, in consequence of the urgency of the demand, or of new political motives, hon. Members should become more prepared to entertain this question than they now are, I have no doubt that ideas of abstract right will very rapidly and easily range themselves on the side of events to come. The ground of abstract right, however, was one which the hon. and learned Gentleman, in introducing this measure, was bound to put before the House. There is also the ground of a large expediency, the advisability of satisfying a not unreasonable desire and demand, the expediency of bringing new influences to bear upon the legislation and the administration of the country. But there is another aspect of the question which to my mind is more practical and more fitted for our consideration, and that is that we should ask ourselves on what grounds we are to refuse the present proposal, why we should desire to refuse it, and what there is to fear in granting it. I listened to the debate in some respects with considerable satisfaction, because in the course of it I found that many of the objections that formerly were raised to the enfranchisement of women have disappeared. It was not without satisfaction that I found that no hon. Member referred to the pamphlet by Mr. Gold win Smith, in which that able writer states that the enfranchisement of women by this Bill would lead to the enfranchisement of a law and liberty disliking class, and would end by overthrowing all our free institutions. A view so extravagant is not worthy of a writer of Mr. Goldwin Smith's ability and eminence, and I am glad that it has not been put forward to-day. Then, again, we have heard much less of the physical unfitness of women to exercise the franchise. There is no doubt that there is a radical difference in nature and in constitution between men and women, but that is a difference which will endure whatever our legislation may be, and I should be glad to see hon. Members put more faith in this constitutional difference between the sexes which the laws of Nature have provided. But although it may be true that there is this constitutional difference between the sexes, yet there is this distinction to be borne in mind—that although there may be an unfitness on the part of women for certain careers in life, such as that of the Bar, or that of politics, or to be members of a Legislative Assembly, or of an Imperial Government—that is not the question we have to discuss to-day—the question we are called upon to determine, and in my opinion it is impossible to dispute it, is the competency of women once in every three or four years to vote by ballot at the election of a Member to serve in this House. Women have by the Common Law a local vote, and of late years we have given them the municipal and the school board franchise. It has been said that we gave them the municipal franchise by surprise; but no proposal to withdraw that franchise from them has been brought forward, and I challenge any hon. Member who holds the view that they ought not to possess it, to propose a repeal of the law in that respect. If that law is not to be repealed, then I say that the distinction you endeavour to draw between the exercise of the local and Imperial franchises is not founded either in reason or in fact. I hear such expressions as these used—that it is not the function of woman, and she is not trained or educated to rule great Empires? But is the bulk of the male population trained and educated to rule great Empires? Can we not draw a distinction between the function of voting for a Representative and the function of representing those who vote. I would further ask hon. Members to bear in mind the fact that women are gradually accustoming themselves to the exercise of the privilege of voting in consequence of their possessing the local franchise, and that their thus having a share in local government tends to enlarge and elevate their character, and that any distinction you may choose to draw between the exercise of the local and Imperial franchise is one that is destined to diminish and to disappear. So much for the objections that have been raised against the Bill; and I think that I have shown that I am justified in saying that the hon. and learned Gentleman is entitled to ask the House to come to the consideration of this measure upon its merits, without being too much alarmed at the bugbears and the ulterior results to which this proposed legislation may be supposed by some as likely to conduce. As I understand the arguments of those who oppose the measure they come to this: that on the one hand the Bill is not a genuine practical measure of reform, because it would only enfranchise a small proportion of women, and not those who, if women were enfranchised, ought to be placed on the register. The second objection is that this measure, having no sufficient practical justification in itself, ought to be regarded simply as a stepping-stone to something further intended to be accomplished by the hon. Member at some future day, but when it is impossible to say. I take issue upon these objections. As to the first objection, it is perfectly true that the franchise would be conferred by this Bill only upon widows and unmarried women, and not upon married women who are not widows; but it does not, therefore, follow that the views of women would not be fairly represented upon every question affecting their interests. What is our experience upon this point? There is a remarkable logic in the course of political events connected with the franchise. As soon as you remove the political disabilities of a certain class, it is not necessary that that class should be represented in proportion to its numbers, or even so as to alter practically the composition of this House. The mere fact that the disabilities of a class have been removed alters its condition, and raises its status in the public and in the legislative mind, and brings those questions in which it is interested to the front with a fair chance of their competing with others for precedence, and in these days the chief question is one of competing for precedence in legislation. Take for instance the case of the admission of the working classes to the franchise in 1867. The great blot upon the escutcheon of the middle classes of the Parliament of 1832 was that they failed in their legislation to provide for the education of the working classes; but the moment you introduced household suffrage, although it applied only to the towns and not to the counties, a complete change came "o'er the spirit of our dream," with reference to the question of education, and we made an enormous stride in that direction. We were told that we must educate our future masters—that we must educate those whom we enfranchised. The same thing will follow if women are enfranchised by virtue of those among them who are placed upon the register, and whether the widows and unmarried women care much or little for the education of female children, I firmly believe that the logical and practical and proximate consequence of passing this measure would be that we should be compelled to do an act of large justice to women with regard to their education, and that they would be able to make a demand upon the Imperial and local funds and endowments of the country such as would, if acceded to, bring about something approaching justice and equality in their educational treatment as compared with that of boys. As to the second objection, that this measure is not a resting-place—that it is a mere stepping-stone to further legislation—I distinctly deny and disbelieve that proposition, and I will state to the House my reasons for doing so. One reason is that which I have already endeavoured to place before the House—namely, that this Bill will give to women a bonâ fide representation, although only a portion of the sex would be enfranchised by it, and would affect sensibly the order and precedence in which we should approach questions in which they are interested. But beyond that I believe that this measure, if carried, would positively conduce to finality and permanence in our Repre- sentative institutions, which the House and the public accepted and adopted in the Reform Act of 1867. The hon. Member for Huddersfield has said that it is not the possession of property, nor even the occupation of property, that ought to confer a right to the franchise, and that the base and principle of the measure of 1867 was the representation of the household. I ask you to go a step further, and to say that the household should be represented through its chief and head, whether male or female. You will then be on the lines of your own legislation; you will be adopting, not a Radical and revolutionary, but a Conservative view of the subject, and you will have a chance of obtaining something like a firm and stable basis for your future representation. There are other objections which have been raised by those who oppose this Bill which are quite as fundamental as those to which I have already referred. The hon. Member for Huddersfield calls us theorists. That charge I retort. I say that those who oppose this practical and moderate measure are the theorists, because, after all, when we probe them to the very bottom of their thoughts, upon what grounds is it that they oppose this proposal? It is because they entertain certain à priori notions as to the place and functions of women in the world. The views of hon. Members who repudiate this proposal are based upon an à priori and upon consequences supposed to flow from it that are entirely inconsistent with modern facts. They would be consistent only with a condition of society which should combine the primitive relations of pastoral life with all that is most elevating and progressive in modern civilization. They deal with the question as though every woman in society in this country had a husband, a father, or a brother to protect her, and as though her functions were exclusively confined to the home. I say that that is not a practical view based upon the facts of the world in which we live. The hon. and learned Member in bringing this Bill before the House referred to certain statistics to which I propose to add a few figures. It may be well that I should remind the House of the large surplus population of women as compared with men, many of whom have no choice but to remain unmarried, and are forced to maintain themselves by their own exer tions. I find the figures on the point are these. The surplus number of women in the United Kingdom is 925,764; against whom ought to be set 200,000 soldiers and sailors who are absent from the country, leaving a preponderance of more than 700,000 women over men. I know how that fact may be used against this measure. It may be said that women form the majority in this country, and now you are about to hand over the representation of the country to them; but I deny the truth of that proposition, because all that you will do by this Bill is to complete your household suffrage system. I find that of the total female population about 487,000 are widows, who having no man upon whom they can depend for assistance and protection have to earn their own livelihood, and have to rough it in the world and to maintain families left to them by their husbands who are dead. Going through the list of trades in which women are engaged, I find that the number of women so employed is about 2,500,000, not existing under the ideal conditions of which we have heard, but having to maintain their own in their unequal struggle, sometimes the cruelly unequal struggle for bread for themselves and their children, against the stronger sex. I find such figures as these—women who maintain themselves by working in the various textile manufactures, 517,000; school teachers, 94,000; shopkeepers, 18,000; and farmers and graziers, 24,338. I wish to ask the House how, having already household suffrage in the boroughs, and it looming in the not very distant future for the counties, we can admit every labourer in the country to the franchise, and yet shut out from it these 24,338 women farmers and graziers? Of about 6,000,000 of women some 3,000,000 are supposed to remain at home as daughters and wives, 1,000,000 partly support themselves, and 2,000,000 are engaged independently in supporting themselves. These are facts which to my mind are entirely inconsistent with the theories and the à prioris on which hon. Members oppose fundamentally any proposal of this kind. But we have been asked, and it is a fair question—"What will this measure lead to?" Well, I do not pretend to be philosopher enough to tell you. But I will put another question, instead of answering that—"Can you tell me what will your persistent resistance to this measure lead to if you succeed?" To me it appears that the future place of women in political and social life is not the question we have to determine today, and that whatever conclusion we may arrive at will not exercise much influence upon the ultimate solution of this question. By opposing a moderate measure of this kind hon. Members may precipitate the results they apprehend; they will not prevent them if they are coming in the great order of events, but in any case I have no fear but that Nature's laws will assert themselves however Parliament may legislate, and that the great distinction between the sexes will be on the whole preserved and maintained. We are told that the lodger franchise presents a difficulty, but the lodger franchise is but an insignificant part of this question. In the cities and boroughs of England and Wales the number of persons who vote as occupiers of houses is 1,280,000, while the number of lodgers voting is only 5,257. The number of female lodgers would be still more insignificant. The number of male persons voting in Ireland as occupiers is 43,000, and of lodgers only 774, who principally reside in Dublin. In Scotland the number voting as occupiers is 161,750, and of lodgers only 76. Under these circumstances the lodger franchise for women is utterly insignificant, and I am perfectly willing to abandon it to the tender mercies of the hon. Members who oppose the Bill. Then as regards the other point as to the Proviso which was in the other Bill excluding married women from the franchise, I am at least bound to say that the hon. and learned Member has been well advised in omitting that Proviso from the present Bill, for in doing so he acted to some extent on my advice. Should, however, any reasonable doubt be entertained as to the possible effect of the measure with respect to married women when the Bill gets into Committee, I shall have no objection to words being inserted which shall remove all doubt, and shall exclude married women from the franchise. In conclusion, I say that the object of the Bill and of its promoters is definite and clear. They do not introduce a measure which is to be a stepping-stone to anything else, but they seek to confer the franchise upon a portion of a sex which they believe would be virtually and effectually represented under this Bill. I believe it to be untrue that it will be no satisfaction to the claims which women make, because its practical result will be to lead the Legislature to the study of the subjects that interest women especially; and lastly, I submit the Bill to the House on the ground that it is a corollary of the principle and object of the legislation of 1867, and that it will make household suffrage a fact as well as a name. It will confer the franchise on the head of the household, upon the bread-winner, whether a man or a woman; and if the House passes this Bill there will be a prospect for the first time of getting upon that firm and stable ground and basis which the House sought to arrive at in the legislation of 1867.

MR. BERESFORD HOPE

The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stansfeld) who has just spoken with an ability and fairness for which I compliment him, has asked a question, and I will give him an answer. Hitherto, England has followed, like other civilized countries, the law of Nature, the rule of Providence and the order of the human race, created as it is, male and female. Following that order we have advanced in civilization, in liberty, in education, and in power, with a persistence that will keep us in our place among the other nations. If we give up that which makes this persistence possible we shall drift into an unknown future of mere theoretical philosophy, and all our old advantages, all the great treasures of political and social wisdom which we have garnered up will be staked on the hazard of a crude experiment. That is my answer to the question of the right hon. Gentleman. I was interested in the only two speeches as yet made for the Bill—those of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Marylebone (Mr. Forsyth) and of the right hon. Gentleman, for I was struck by the very different ways in which they tried to grapple with the same bewildering fact—that the Bill before the House was, in reality, a proposal just not to do what sweet, though resonant, voices out-of-doors have called on us to carry out. Cloak as you may, phrase it as you please—"look on it with ridicule" was, I think, what my hon. and learned Friend had to say of the idea of women sitting here—clothe it if you like in philosophical generalizations, as the right hon. Gentleman opposite did, the fact remains that the outside cry is for the enfranchisement of women as women. The nostrum which we are here told to swallow is the enfranchisement of the householder, if that householder should happen to he a "miss" or a "widow;" and the disfranchisement of the householder who has the good fortune to be a wedded wife. Those two proposals are diametrically and irreconcilably opposite, and how do the two hon. Gentlemen and their speeches respectively deal with the difference? I must give the palm of courage to my hon. and learned Friend on my left (Mr. Forsyth); for when he had to face it he simply took a flying leap over it. Every word he said appealed to us to accept a hold and consistent proposal, and having thus argued, he called upon us to support the narrow and inconsistent makeshift. He rode off upon "the interests of women which have been for centuries neglected," "the domination of the strong over the weak," "women's sphere according to political arithmetic;" then he spoke of "women farmers;" he next went to "Bridgwater;" then he came to the "Hard battle of life," and the "Ballot Act," and at last he reached "vaccination," and the transmigration of men into cows. Here I must stop for this cow of my hon. Friend jumped over rather too high a moon for me to follow. All this was a very grand prelude to what from his own arguments approved itself to be a very small measure. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Stansfeld), however, perceived the logical difficulty in which the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone had involved himself and he constructed an argument which, as a specimen of ingenuous and fantastical Conservatism, I think is one of the ablest I ever heard. When we passed the Reform Bill a few years ago, we accepted household suffrage as a sort of rough-and-ready way of reaching a sufficient constituency and yet one that should not be too large. We had an unlimited household franchise in boroughs and what was a practically limited household franchise in the counties, and we had a certain number of lodgers thrown in, I suppose by way of ballast. Upon this the right hon. Gen- tleman has constructed his theory. He implied that our idea of things as they are was too ideal and too pastoral. I really must appeal to him to say whether there could conceivably be anything more ideal, or more beautifully pastoral, than his own theory of a constituency as composed of a number of houses, each constituting a household, the head of which was to have a vote, while the residue of these households, and all the unhappy waifs and strays of humanity, who have no hearth which would give them the right to speak of their own households, are to accept this revival of the old patriarchal ideal in the shape of a country governed by a constituency of householders. All I shall say of his theory is, that I would we were in the primitive and innocent condition in which such a system would give contentment. But how does he apply this directly to the present case? He says that virtually you enfranchise all womankind, because you enfranchise the woman householder. How does he arrive at this point, that the women you enfranchise are the women householders? He says you enfranchise the single women and widows; but he then sees the weakness of his case, inasmuch as the single women you would enfranchise would more likely be lodgers than householders, and he produces figures to show that the lodger voters in this country are so small a number that they might be struck out of the equation, and need not give us any further trouble. The right hon. Gentleman offers this statement as a reason why we should admit to this lodger franchise a class of persons who, on the other hand, are represented as being an enormous infusion of additional political power. He tells us that the men lodgers at the present moment are so few that we need not be afraid to let in the many women who would get votes under a women-lodger franchise. But how are these women lodgers to be brought into the general argument? How do you range them as in any way possessing a good household character? You can only create such a character or condition by letting in the widows. I grant that there the argument of the right hon. Gentleman may have something in it; but what does it lead to. Why, that a woman, when she enters into a contract of marriage, is to lose her political status, and that that political status is only to revive on the condition of her having suffered the greatest of all domestic and social calamities. What, I ask, can be so ridiculous as this? A woman, so long as she is a spinster, is to have the franchise. She performs the greatest and the highest duty a woman can undertake, and the fulfilment of that greatest and highest duty is to deprive her of her political privilege; but this political privilege is to be revived if the performance of her highest duty is cut short by the visitation of Providence—by the loss of the bread-winner—by her being reduced to that condition of comparative helplessness which the widow must inevitably fill as compared with the married woman. But here I must ask, how long will this ideal householder condition last? How long will the married estate in all its aspects—not merely religious or social, but also political and legal—continue as it is now, under such a distortion of logical considerations. At present the husband is the master of the house; he manages the household; his is the strong arm, and therefore his is the guiding hand. If you once make the condition of marriage to the woman a political stigma and the loss of her antecedent citizenship, how long do you believe that condition can be maintained, supposing that women's enfranchisement is valuable, as we are told that it is? Assuming that cry for this enfranchisement of which we have heard, but which I do not believe, and in proof of which no facts have yet been produced, how long do you suppose, if women have to choose between coverture and the franchise, that they will allow the present relations of husband and wife in the common interest of their family to exist when the price that is paid for it is, as the right hon. Gentleman would lead us to suppose, that of political degradation? There are many more things that will be thrown into confusion by this Bill, should it pass into law, than the mere relations of Parliament and the constituencies. There is much more in this matter than the mere question of whom we shall have sitting on this bench and who shall sit upon that. These are mere trifles compared with the complete revolution which the measure, if successful, must import into all the social relations of life. Then, again, look at the theory of the right hon. Gentleman, that the whole of the rest of womankind of this country would consent to be represented merely by the spinsters and the widows. The spinsters and the widows no doubt are as well informed and as fit to vote or to sit in this House, or to take the chair at public meetings as the married women of the country; but they would be a fantastical—they would be an accidental representation of their sex. And what is it that has been at the bottom of all right reform and of all wrong reform, of all the claims for redress that have had something in them, and of all those claims for redress that have had nothing in them at all, but this one cry of "inequality"—this one plea—that the enfranchisement of this class, the privilege of that class, the disqualification of the other class has been the result of accident and not of reason? If anything could be a disqualification of accident and not of reason in the case of women, it would be the disqualification of having succeeded in getting married, and if anything could be a qualification of accident it would be that, when they had succeeded in getting married, the heavy blow of Providence has deprived them of their protectors. That loss they would be comforted for by getting a vote—a ballot paper for a husband! Such are the doors which, by this Bill, are to open and to close to womankind their political privileges. The whole thing is so utterly fantastical and unreal that I am very much surprised to find persons endowed with the known intellect and ability of the right hon. Gentleman attempting to found any argument upon it. My hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Forsyth) did not attempt to face the question. He simply slurred it, and was wise. As far the idea of ladies not wanting seats in Parliament is concerned, how will the right hon. Gentleman meet facts? A number of ladies held, on one occasion, a counter debate to ours when a similar measure was before the House two years ago, at which speeches were made, which were more or less effective against the Bill, a distinguished female orator being set up to answer each particular speaker, and I have a ticket for that meeting in my hand. It is headed "Women's Suffrage," and says— A public meeting will be held in Hanover Square Rooms on Friday, May 10th, which will be addressed by ladies, in reply to the speeches delivered in the House of Commons against the second reading of the Women's Disabilities Bill. Then follow the names of the ladies; but I will not read them to the House. "The chair to be taken at 8 o'clock by Dr. Lyon Playfair, M.P.;" I merely say that if this took place only two years ago, not many yards out of the borough of which my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Forsyth) is now the distinguished Representative, he need not be so sceptical or contemptuous of what may happen in the not very distant future should this measure be allowed to pass. The fact is, that this question of women's suffrage has, in the eyes of some advanced Reformers, taken a somewhat ugly prominence of late. Let the franchise be enlarged or let it be kept where it is—let it be enlarged on the principle of a wide but still a limited franchise in the counties, or let it go on to universal suffrage—whatever shape it may take the woman's question has got in, has intruded itself, and has taken possession of the field. If you vote for this Bill in any shape you make it impossible that in any future extension of the franchise, the women and the men should not march pari passû. I hold in my hand a report of a meeting which was held on the 15th of last month. It says— Yesterday a meeting of the Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage was held for the purpose of receiving a deputation from the Adult Suffrage League, the object of which was to acquaint the first-mentioned society with the difficulty, unpopularity, and prejudice which arose when working men, agitating for an extension of the suffrage, attempted to introduce and sustain the claim of women. It was, in fact, an appeal from the men's men to the women's men to be a little more manly in support of their principles, and to balance the difficulty they were creating by affording some direct help to universal suffrage. Accordingly, certain eminent members of the Universal Suffrage Society appeared to meet several distinguished advocates of women's suffrage. The chief spokesman of the women's party was a gentleman who is well known as the most eminent living philosopher who has attempted to grapple with the subject of the franchise, and I am sure when I mention Mr. Hare the House will appreciate the weight and authority attaching to anything he says on the question, whether we may happen to agree with him or not. Mr. Hare, who, as I have said, was their spokesman, speaking on behalf of the Women's Suffrage Society, said that— It had recognized with the utmost satisfaction the higher principles which had been adopted by the Adult Suffrage League, in submitting the claim for a franchise unrestricted by sex, in place of the comparatively poor and selfish, and, he hoped he might say, worn-out cry for 'manhood suffrage.' I hope my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Forsyth) will see what very strong supporters he has a little in advance of the movement in which he is engaged. I will not trouble the House with the whole of Mr. Hare's speech, but according to the report I have here of what took place, he was converted to universal or manhood suffrage plus women's suffrage, and he says—"Will there be an educational test? If a sufficient test of that of that nature were adopted he should personally be ready to join the League." Mr. Hare's speech seem to have given very general satisfaction. Two gentlemen who represented the Adult Suffrage League—Mr. Smith and Mr. Shipton— Expressed a doubt whether if the more popular demands of manhood suffrage were adopted, they would not obtain more present support, but acquiesced in the view that the true policy was always to insist on the principle which was abstractedly the most just and right. Those two gentlemen, whose names I never heard before, and Mr. Hare, whose name must be familiar to every student of political science, shook hands together over the real universal suffrage of every man and every woman, and this took place only about three weeks ago. I have just read these extracts to the House, in order that the House may appreciate for itself what it is to which we are tending. It may be right, as the right hon. Gentleman opposite thinks, to enfranchise women; but if they are to be enfranchised, the narrow, fantastical limitations of this Bill are mere rubbish. "The voice may be the voice of Jacob; but the hands are the hands of Esau." The rough demand for manhood suffrage and for an equally general women's suffrage will soon follow, and when that has been attained, the happier, better, and more beautiful half of human nature will not long be satisfied with meeting in Hanover Square Rooms and answering our speeches from the outside of this House. It is upon these grounds, Sir, that I shall certainly give my support to the Amendment.

MR. O'SULLIVAN

said, he had listened with particular attention to the debate on the question before the House. As it was a matter on which he had not had his mind fully made up, he was not pledged to the promoters of the Bill; neither was he promised to the opponents of the Bill—therefore any remarks made by him on the question were quite free from bias or prejudice of any kind. He had heard a good deal in favour of the Bill; and, on the other hand, he confessed he had not heard a single argument against it which should warrant him in opposing its further progress. He should say he considered the arguments brought forward against the Bill weak and impotent. One hon. Member had told the House that women were not fit to be Members of Parliament, and should not be allowed on any terms to enter that House. Well, that argument he would call a mere ninepin, which was put up simply for the purpose of knocking it down again, as the promoters of this Bill did not even ask for such a measure. If they did make such a demand, they would find an opponent in him as well as in the hon. Member who opposed the Bill on those imaginary grounds. Another hon. Member had opposed the Bill, on the ground that it would take up the time of women, and distract their attention from their household work. Well, all he need say in reply to that argument was that, under the Ballot Bill, polling-places were now brought to the doors of electors, or, at furthest, within an hour's drive of every elector; and when they recollected that electors were not called on, on an average, more than once in seven years to make use of their privilege as electors, then, all he would say was, that if a woman made good use of her time during the remainder of the period, her household could well afford to spare her one hour in the seven years to devote to the interests of her country. He merely illustrated those things to show the absurdity of this part of the opposition given to the Bill. He would now deal with what seemed to be the real and substantial opposition to the Bill—that is, that being women they should not possess votes—that they belong to man. He could well understand this argument, if they enjoyed the same electoral law as was enjoyed by the subjects of either France or America, for in those countries it was man and not property that was represented. But what was the state of things in this country to enable any hon. Member to make use of such an argument? Was it not a well-known fact that if the greatest statesman that ever lived, the bravest general that ever led an army to victory, or the most brilliant orator that ever adorned the pages of history were to live in this country, or if the three were rolled into one, he could not vote for a Member of this House unless he occupied a certain amount of property in houses or land? Therefore it was property that voted in this country, and not man. They honoured property far beyond man. If John Brown lived in this townland, or that street, and occupied houses or land value for a certain amount he voted for a Member of Parliament, not because he was John Brown, but because he represented so much property. Then, for the life of him, he (Mr. O'Sullivan) could not see why it was if Mary Smith held land or houses in the same street or town-land, and had no husband, father, or brother to represent her, she should not be allowed to vote out of her property as well as her neighbour. Then, again, in this respect their laws seemed completely out of joint. They allowed women to vote for Poor Law guardians; they allowed them to vote for municipal councillors, and they allowed them to vote for members of school boards; yet they refused to allow them to vote for the men who taxed their property as well as the property of men, and who made laws to which women should be subject, though she had no voice in the making of those laws. Then, again, their laws were quite inconsistent in this respect. That property had many rights in this country was admitted, and among those rights was the right which it gave to the party holding it to vote at elections. Then, if they continued this bar against their voting out of the property they held, to make their laws consistent they should pass a law to debar women from holding property at all. It was clear they should pass such a law if they continued the present state of things. Before he concluded he would appeal to them, as a body of honourable men who represented the feelings of the people of every class and creed, not to be so narrow-minded or jealous as to oppose this measure of justice. It was simply the weak appealing to the strong to grant them a small boon, to which they were justly entitled. Would the strong refuse that right to the weak, and have themselves branded as unjust, unfair, and unmanly? He asked them for the credit of that great Assembly, and for the credit of the position they occupied, to pass the second reading of the Bill.

MR. NEWDEGATE

Nothing, Sir, is more remarkable in the advocacy of this Bill than the anxiety displayed by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Mover and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax to avoid any discussion of the issue this measure really raises. The terms of the Bill are clear enough. The House is asked to sweep away the limitation of the franchise as between the sexes, which not only the laws of this country, but the laws of the whole civilized world preserve. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax was shocked at the audacity of those who ventured to discuss the Bill as it had been printed and placed in their hands. The hon. and learned Mover of the Bill declared that it did not contain a Proviso against the enfranchisement of married women, which ought to have been inserted, while the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax explained that this Proviso had been omitted at his instance, and that he repented the omission. The right hon. Gentleman is known to have taken a great interest in the affairs of Italy, and to glory in the enfranchisement of the Italian people; but, in Italy, although women are permitted to take part in matters of Parliamentary Elections, there is a positive limitation to their action—they are compelled to vote through the intervention of male delegates. In this limitation, there is a recognition of the law of Nature, that man shall go forth to warfare and to labour, supported by, but for the sustenance of woman. The right hon. Gentleman admired that arrangement for Italy, but proposed nothing of the kind for his own country. And then, forsooth, the right hon. Gentleman is shocked because other hon. Members in the debate urged that the tendency of this Bill was towards the universal and direct enfranchisement of women. You must not, exclaimed the right hon. Gentleman, speculate upon the future consequences of the passing of the Bill; it is a small measure, and will not confer the franchise upon many women; and yet he has argued the production of this very Bill is the legitimate consequence of the passing of the Election Act of 1867. He describes this Bill as the complement to the Bill of 1867, and yet seems outraged, when others calculate the inevitable consequence of the admission of the principle which pervades this Bill and tends to universal suffrage, not among men only but among women. The hon. Gentleman sought to perform the part of a very Nahash by the House. But the truth is, that the advocates of this Bill have been labouring assiduously, by the suggestion of fictitious limitations, to be hereafter, as they say, introduced into the Bill, to grind the edge of this wedge as thin as possible, that they might have a better chance of introducing it for the severance of the institutions of this country. As often happens on Wednesdays in this House, numbers of hon. Members, who have been employed or amused elsewhere, during the previous hours, are now entering the House, in total ignorance of what has passed here. They have not heard the able and exhaustive speeches of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) and the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Leatham), which ranged over the whole question. They arrive here, full, perhaps, of preconceived notions, for the mere lees of the debate. There is a natural and almost honourable repugnance to refuse anything any section of our fellow-countrymen, however misguided we may think them, may ask of us. The hon. and learned Member for Marylebone, however, in moving the second reading of this Bill, commented upon my opinion that this is a revolutionary measure. I consider this Bill revolutionary, nay, Socialistic in its tendency; and when I assert that, I do not rest my assertion merely upon my own authority. I have the authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone), who is not considered a timid legislator, for this opinion. What said that right hon. Gentleman, after this Bill had been introduced in 1870 by Mr. Jacob Bright, and the Bill then contained the Proviso, which is now omitted? The right hon. Gentleman then declared— I must say I cannot recognize a necessity or a desire for this measure, which would justify such an unsettling, not to say uprooting, of the old landmarks of society."—[3 Hansard, cci. 620.] I am not, therefore, isolated in the opinion that this is a revolutionary measure. But we have now another authority. Mr. Goldwin Smith, in the able pamphlet he has recently published, declares a similar opinion. Mr. Goldwin Smith is a convert. He tells that before he went to the United States, he signed a Petition in favour of the Bill; but what he saw of the public conduct of the women in the United States, who desired to possess the franchise, and had not spared to attack the inviolability of marriage, had induced him to send us a warning from the United States; he tells that the power of divorce is so wide in several of the States as almost to have dissolved the most sacred of human institutions. Am I not, then, justified in suspecting a measure as Socialistic, which in the United States is the favourite project of a Socialistic school? The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Marylebone says that the scheme for the political enfranchisement of women is making progress in the United States. I do not believe that to be the case. I believe that the manly intellect of the American Republicans will, for the sake of their institutions, preserve the limit which confines the political franchise to men. Mr. Goldwin Smith has sent us this warning, and yet the hon. and learned Gentleman styles himself a Conservative, and would have us accept this measure as of a Conservative character. It seems to me that the hon. and learned Gentleman spoke lightly of the marriage laws, while he inveighed fiercely against the laws which regulate the property of women; he spoke of the laws of this country as harsh and unjust to women. Let me ask him whether this House and Parliament have not of late years given much attention to this subject, whether the law has not been amended in respect of the property of women? The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that Parliament has attended to this subject, and the laws regulating their property have been amended. Then may I not assert that this House needs not in this respect the enfranchisement of women, nor the introduction of female legislatresses into this House to teach us our duty towards their sisters? This Bill casts an unjust reflection upon the conduct and intentions of Parliament; but I will admit that this House and Parliament have, in some respects, been slow in providing legislative protection for women. The House has been dilatory in considering the laws, which in all other countries have been enacted for the regulation of Conventual Institutions and in the adoption of some analogous provisions. [Laughter.] Will the hon. Gentlemen who seem inclined to treat that circumstance with derision, deny that laws regulating Conventual Institutions exist in all or in almost every European State except the United Kingdom? There are, it is true, no such laws in the United States; and may not that account for the Socialistic disposition manifested by some of the American women?—the progress of which seems to commend itself to some of the advocates of this Bill. Is the House prepared to pave the way for the adoption of universal suffrage, and that peculiar kind of universal suffrage which would include women? And yet, to me, it seems that if the House is not prepared for such a consequence, it ought not to annul that limit of the franchise which, as yet, is of universal application among the civilized nations of the world; that limitation which is founded upon the distinction between the functions, the duties, the relations of the sexes, which has existed since the creation of man. It is because this Bill would invade that limitation thus founded that I denounce it as a revolutionary measure. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax felt this, and was too candid not, in some degree, to admit the force of it. He repentantly promised to restore the Proviso excluding married women as already represented by their husbands. And he suggested another most anomalous limitation; he said that he would make these unmarried women or widows voters, but he would support a prohibition against their becoming candidates for seats in this House. Can any proposal be more anomalous? No; if we are to sweep away this natural limitation against women taking a direct part, politically, by voting at elections, the new limitations you may invent, or have invented, resting upon weaker foundations, will all be swept away. It had been argued that, women having been admitted to the exercise of the municipal franchise, therefore they ought to be admitted to the franchise for electing Members of this House. Is there no distinction then, between the functions of a municipality and the functions of an Imperial Legislature? The fact is well known that women had been admitted to the possession of the municipal franchise through an accident, and not by the deliberate intention of Parliament. I admit that women have long exercised the franchise in parochial matters, and that it has a sanction which I would on no account ignore; parochial matters, however, are matters, so to speak, of family economy, different from the subjects which most occupy the attention of an Imperial Legislature; they relate to the care of the poor, the care of the sick, the care of the roadways to our homes; matters which belong to women as well as men; and this has been recognized ever since the time of Queen Elizabeth, who, if ever woman could, might be trusted to understand the capacity of her own sex. The House must beware of these proposals, then; for they emanate from a school which deifies the principles of equality. The measure may commend itself to the approval of those who will be satisfied with nothing less than a dead level of democratic equality, and to those who prefer the equality of subjection to a despotism. For my own part, I believe that the misguided ladies who are so urgent in demanding this Bill, are prompted by those, who entertain ulterior views and objects, and that the great mass of my countrywomen carefully abstain from lending their sanction or voices to this cause. I trust, that the House will not shut its eyes to the vast consequences that are to be apprehended from the passing of such a measure. The House is told that it is a proposal to enfranchise 300,000 women; and is it for the sake of enfranchising 300,000 women that we are called upon to break down the limitation of the franchise which rests upon the great natural distinction existing between the functions and relations of the sexes, upon which alone we can hope the limitation will rest surely, as it had rested safely for centuries, corresponding as it does with the limit which divided the duties of men and women? I will not further detain the House, though I might quote evidence from the speeches of Mr. Bouverie, who showed, step by step, that this movement had its origin and growth from the disciples of Mr. Robert Owen, the well-known Socialist of the earlier part of the century. I might show the connection of this movement with other Socialistic movements that have of late years taken place until it has assumed the form in which it is now presented to the House; in the shape in which it comes before the House, this proposal casts an unworthy and unjust reflection upon the conduct of the House and of its Members—upon our feelings as men and as Gentlemen, this Bill ought to be rejected as embodying a most unworthy reflection upon the views and intentions of Parliament.

MR. JACKSON

said, that after carefully reading the Bill, he had come to the conclusion that it would, in certain cases, confer votes upon married women. Therefore, if it should pass its present stage, he would feel it to be his duty to propose the insertion of words in Committee which would place the intention of the House to restrict the franchise to qualified unmarried women beyond question. The question, he could not but think, had been debated in too high a key. The point they had to decide was, whether those women who satisfied the definition of a qualified voter with regard to men had made out a case to be admitted to the franchise, notwithstanding that they were women. With the exception of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), in his splendid speech, every hon. Member who had spoken against the Bill had avoided that question. In language more or less eloquent or fanciful, they had dealt with a different state of things. In spite of the disclaimer of the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. Forsyth), and his right hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), hon. Members had persisted in seeing nothing in the Bill but a first step to the conferring of the franchise upon all women, co-extensive with the granting of manhood suffrage. But there was no such proposal before the House. Such a dream might be entertained by certain political philosophers; but it had never been clothed in the language, or assumed the form of a practical political question. If it ever did, the House would know how to deal with it. The whole argument against the Bill amounted to this—that the Bill meant something different from what it said. In point of fact, the Bill was meant to confer upon certain persons who happened to be females, the right which they would have but for their sex; and the only answer that could be given to that claim was that which had been candidly offered by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire—that there was in women, either by Divine ordinance or from the habits of mankind, some personal disability unfitting them for the exercise of the franchise. But was that true? Experience answered in the negative, because women now exercised an inferior franchise, and there was no inherent difference between the inferior and the superior. The hon. Member said that the experience of mankind, from the creation down to the year 1875, had been the other way; but, at the same time, he admitted that the experiment now asked for had never been tried. When, then, was the argument based on experience? Surely, the Bill was only one more step in the series of legislative measures which had characterized the political movements of the present generation. Parliament had first dealt with the claims of the middle classes, then of the working classes in towns, and was now considering the claims of another grade of the working classes. Why should they now refuse the full rights of citizenship to women who were qualified to exercise them within the limitations imposed by the Bill? To that question no satisfactory or conclusive answer had yet been given. On that ground, and because he adopted the view of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax, that this concession would establish the principle of the finality of the household as the basis of the suffrage, and would thereby strengthen one of the standpoints for resisting the wave of democracy, that he thought the House would do wrong to read the Bill a second time. But they were asked—What was the object of the measure? They were told that Parliament was always ready to redress grievances, and to a great extent that was so: but he did not think that those who supported the Bill were called upon to show that any immediate or radical result would be the outcome of the Bill, if it were passed. It was enough to say, as he, for one, conscientiously believed, that the result of the contemplated addition to the voting power of the country would be almost entirely for good. If they compared the class of women who would be admitted to the franchise with the same class of men voters among the humbler classes, the comparison would be in favour of the former. So far from being a source of danger, the Bill offered a guarantee for safety; and, above all, it would afford a lever which would assist in obtaining for women that open career and means of obtaining their livelihood for which their dispositions and talents fitted them, and which he believed was the object most aimed at by those most intelligent women who mainly supported the agitation. They had seen how the cause of education had been advanced by women, and he believed that they would, in perhaps a small degree, but still appreciably, find the capacity of women for benefiting the State enlarged if they conferred upon them the privilege for which they now asked.

SIR HENRY JAMES

I should have preferred, for several reasons, to have taken no part in this debate; but my hon. and learned Friend who introduced the Bill referred to me so frequently and pointedly in the course of the speech in which he submitted the measure to the House, that I trust the House will allow me very briefly indeed to occupy their time, while I state the reasons for the opposition which I have hitherto given to this measure, and to vindicate the vote I am now about to record against it. Before discussing the effects of the Bill, it will be well for us really to know what are the provisions contained in it. There are in it some words, few in number, which have been clearly and distinctly printed in plain ink, which we can all read; but a great deal has been printed, too, in invisible type, which causes it to be necessary to hold the Bill up to the light, before those words can be clearly read. Even as the Bill stands, it is clear my hon. and learned Friend was the subject of a deception, when he yielded to the request made to him to remove the Proviso he inserted in the Bill last year, in order to carry his intention, not to give the franchise to married women, into effect. I fancy there was somebody who knew more about the effect of that removal than he did, for, if he will look at the Representation of the People Act, he will find that by the removal of that Proviso, every married woman having property to her separate use will be enabled under the Bill to exercise the county franchise. He will find that every married female lodger, whether separated from her husband by an express judicial decree or by agreement, so that her occupation as a lodger becomes a bonâ fide occupation, will be entitled to vote. My hon. and learned Friend admits that he had no such intention in removing the Proviso. How those ladies who knew its effect must have laughed— Oh! the good man, he little knew What the wily sex could do. It is not, however, evils like these which can be remedied in Committee that I stop to point out; it is the consequences of the Bill which I would ask the House to consider before they sanction it. We have heard to-day from my hon. and learned Friend and my right hon. Friend (Mr. Stansfeld) a doctrine which I would ask the House to weigh. We have been told that we are to look only to the immediate consequences, and not to the ultimate effects of the measure. What manner of statesmanship is that? It will be not only my protest, but the protest of every Member of this House, that we bear the responsibility of looking to the ultimate results of every measure that we pass. Is it to be said that the man who sets the stone rolling at the hill-top is not to look to its effects in the valley—that, because the stone has been moved, and met with nothing in its first motion, we are not to consider its ultimate destination? On the same principle, when the municipal franchise was granted in 1869, without consideration, without even the knowledge of nine-tenths of the Members of this House that it was being granted, we should have been told then, if the matter had been discussed, that we should look only to the immediate consequence, that it was only to confer the municipal and not the Parliamentary franchise; but how is it used against us now? This argument has been employed to-day, and it has made converts—that as you conferred the municipal franchise on women, can you deny them the Parliamentary? There is as great a distinction between the two as there is between married women and single. On what principle is it that you who have spoken of the weaker sex, have introduced a Bill to confer this right on single women, and refuse it to married women? Is it right and politic to tell a woman who desires to bear her part in political life, that if she marries she shall lose her right? Are you to give that right to a woman who has not the power of consulting with a husband, and refuse it to a woman who receives that counsel and experience? It stands now as a natural consequence of the Bill, and I have a right to argue upon its natural consequences, and to ask whether you mean to give full and equal electoral rights to all women? I do not know whether that is the intention of hon. Members who support the Bill—I know it is not the intention of my hon. and learned Friend, because he has said it is not; but the fact remains that, let this Bill once pass through his exertions, and his wishes then would have but little weight as to its ultimate effects with those who support him. Let me quote a greater authority even than my hon. and learned Friend. It is a letter written on the 4th April last year, shortly after the introduction of his Bill, signed by a lady bearing for many reasons an honoured name, "Ursula S. Bright," and one who has a right to speak on this subject. She said— Some of us would be glad to know on what grounds Mr. Forsyth proposes to exclude those married women who have freehold property or other qualifications for exercising the right he wishes to confer on unmarried women in the same position. The various societies for women's suffrage are united for one object, which is to obtain for women the right to vote for Members of Parliament on the same conditions which entitle men to vote. Mr. Forsyth's Bill, therefore, does not meet their case, and unless suitable Amendments should be carried in Committee, the agitation will go on after the Bill is passed, without any more interruption than will be necessary to enable the societies to congratulate each other on their partial success. Now, that is a pretty fair declaration of war on the subject; and after reading that, and looking to the natural con-sequence of passing the Bill, need I trouble the House by answering the statements of my hon. Friends when they say—"Be blind as to the results; read its four corners only, and do not trouble?" Let me take the four corners as it stands, and what is the result? If you pass this Bill, when the time comes, which many hon. Members—especially on this side of the House—anticipate, when the property qualification necessary for exercising the franchise will be abolished, and when every citizen of the State will have a right to take part in electing those who govern, we must let women have an equal share with their husbands in the franchise, and give them the same full electoral rights, and under such circumstances those who support universal suffrage must either be prepared to postpone it indefinitely, or to admit women to that equal share. There are, as we are told, upwards of 900,000 more women than men in this country. It is not, probably, too much to say that 500,000 more women than men will be put upon the register, and under those circumstances how is this nation to be governed and to endeavour to hold its own among the nations of the world? As to the flimsy protection the property qualification would afford, there are many hon. Members on both sides of the House who are anxious to alter the law affecting the right of married women to hold property; and I will say, let that law be altered as you desire, and let married women have the same right to property as men, and they also will get the right of voting without one word being added to our Statute Book. Such being the effect of the measure, it is admitted to be a great and a radical change. I do not tarry here to talk of the "burden of proof." That is a lawyer's term, and is not worth consideration here; but if this alteration is to be effected, we ought to be quite certain that it will do good. I will refer shortly to the arguments mentioned this afternoon. The word "right" has been used more than once, and there have been allusions to the right of property and to the right of individuals. Can we seriously say for one moment that there is a right in property to be represented? We shall go back to the old saying used long ago, that it is the house which holds a man and not the man who holds the house that has the right to vote. If, then, you do not say property is to be represented, you come to the question whether a woman has an absolute right to claim the franchise. On what terms? She can claim to be a citizen only, if she is willing to bear the burdens as well as accept the advantages of the position. As was said in that most able speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Leatham)—delivered, I am sorry to say, when the House was not quite so full as it is now—when you are discussing the question of a woman who says—"Give me this, because I demand it as a right," you must ask if she is content to be classed on an equality with men. What are the primary obligations of citizenship? Will women accept the first and very natural one of enrolling themselves in defence of their country? Are they willing to accept a conscription, if one should be enforced in case of the invasion of the State? Are they willing to assist in maintaining internal peace by acting as special constables? Are they willing to sit on the magisterial bench? Are they willing to accept the obligation of jurors? If they admit, on the one hand, their inability to bear these burdens while they say, on the other, "Give us equal rights and privileges," surely their claim of right cannot be supported, and they must make it on other grounds. But, abandoning this claim of right, you say that it is well for the State that this should be. How is it to be supported? It is an exceptional question, and it must be supported by clear argument that the State would be benefited. I have heard to-day much that appears to me to be a concession—in, for instance, the admission of women's inferiority for a political career. It is only carrying out that which has been said, strongly enough, by my right hon. Friend, as to the view of Nature. It is only carrying out the mere corollary of physical weakness under which for some purpose Nature has assigned that women should suffer. I know that in the work of Mr. Mill there is an argument addressed very much to the point that there ought not to be a weaker sex. That question, however, I must decline to enter into. It is, in fact, too late to argue whether there ought to be a weaker sex or not, and therefore hon. Members must excuse me if I do not engage in that contest. They must argue, not with me, but with Nature; and, as Mr. Squeers says, "you will find Nature a very awkward customer to deal with." If there is this physical weakness—and I presume it is admitted—it cannot be an accident, or the result of training or education. It is a weakness found in the human kind as well as in every other form of animal life, a weakness that causes us to spare the hind in the forest and the hen in the covert—it is given to women with an object and for a purpose; it is given to them in order that they may adapt themselves to a different description of life from that of men. As has been expressed by one who read human nature, and wrote of it perhaps better than any Englishman who ever existed, where he makes Katharine, at the conclusion of a struggle in which she endeavoured to take the position of man, acknowledge the errors of her ways— Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth, Unapt to toil and trouble in the world; But that our soft conditions and our hearts Should well agree with our external parts? We need not, however, discuss this consideration further. My right hon. Friend with strange frankness, has said—"I admit women are weaker than men for the purposes of a political career:" it is a political career we are discussing at this moment. If they are not fitted to sit in this House—if, as it is admitted by my right hon. Friend, they are not fitted to take their fair part in the burdens of political life, how do you establish that they are competent to give a vote in the return of Members of Parliament? What is this career of politics composed of? What is that we have to deal with here in the course of our political career? We ask for the practical experience of men. We listen with attention to men in particular professions when they speak on special questions. We ask for men in the Army and Navy to guide us in matters military and naval; we ask for commercial men and lawyers to assist us in other directions; and from every one of such pursuits women are practically shut out, and, to a certain extent, ever must be shut out. When you speak of the unfitness of women for political life it is not because their minds are somewhat different, it is because their habits and instincts prevent them from acting in those particular occupations which alone can give political knowledge. The effect of the Bill, if passed, will be to drive women to consider subjects connected, I will not say with sentiment, but at all events not always with the good government of the people. Were female franchise introduced into France, what would be the question affecting the elections in every department of that country? The question would be whether there should be war with Italy to restore the temporal power of the Pope. As to what would be the question in this country, we need not speculate. We have had practical proof of that. Of all questions more immediately affecting the law, we hear little of women's influence or interest. If the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) were to hold a meeting on the county franchise, or the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Dixon) were to have one on the 25th clause of the Education Act, they would find but few women to attend them. But we find that the effect of women only hovering on the very threshold of political life has been that that has occurred now which would not have occurred a few years ago. We find this class of political women willing to lead these "simple maidens in their flower," who we have been told, "are worth a hundred coats of arms," and to go and hear from gentleman the details of the Contagious Diseases Acts. We learn from their Petitions and their statements that they "thoroughly understand the subject," and know the effect it has alike on the physical and moral health of the community. That is one of the effects of the entrance of women on political life. The question is, whether you would wish to see it extended; and, if so, to what extent, for to what it might lead us no one can tell. The hon. and learned Member (Mr. Forsyth) does not attempt to do so; but he does tell us that it will remedy injustice, and will cause justice now, for the first time, to be afforded to women. What charge is it that the hon. and learned Member brings against us? What is the injustice of which he speaks? Has the hon. and learned Member done his part, if he has not brought forward proof of the injustice these injured women have endured? What proof has he that other hon. Members are not equally inclined to remove their grievances if they only knew them? It is odd enough for him to say that this House is so unjust that women cannot obtain fair legislation for themselves, and at the same time to tell us that, so confident is he in the justice of his case, that he is certain he will carry it by a large majority. If this House is so just as to pass this Bill, it might be relied on to be equally so to remedy these grievances. May I venture now to say one word in regard to a personal matter, and I beg to apologize to the House for referring to it? My hon. and learned Friend has claimed from me the performance of a promise it is alleged I made some time ago. He claims my vote. I reject his claim: I shall not vote for the Bill; I shall cheerfully give my vote against it. In claiming my vote for the measure, he says that, in the heat of an election contest, I stated that if half the women in my constituency asked me to vote for it, I would do so. The recollection I have of the words I used—though I do not care to raise any question as to what these were precisely—is that I said that if I thought half of the women in the borough—who, I supposed, would be fairly representative of the women of the country—showed themselves in favour of the Bill, I would reconsider my very definite opinion. Now, however, my hon. and learned Friend tells us, that because in a town where there are 8,000 or 9,000 females—the proportion of adults I do not know—a Petition was signed by under 300, I am to vote for the Bill. That, surely, is not the half of the women of my constituency; and I do not recognize that it is a Petition of even 300 women. We have heard a good deal lately about the way Petitions are got up; and when you pay so much for signature, it is an easy matter to get Petitions up upon any subject. My hon. and learned Friend also suggests that I ought not to have referred to the female supporters of the Bill as women who endeavoured to become political successes, because they had been social failures. If that statement gave pain or annoyance to any one, I deeply regret it, and I would even apologize for it to those to whom I more immediately applied it. Let me, however, remind those who have gone through the heat of a Parliamentary Election that they may never have had two ladies dogging their steps and entering after them into the habitations of the electors, and telling their wives that they were oppressed by a tyrant, and that I was one of the oppressors. Under those circumstances, if I did use strong language, I think there was some little excuse for the inadvertence. My hon. and learned Friend has read a long list of aristocratic names—with which he is better acquainted than I am—and asks if these are the women I want to insult. [Mr. FORSYTH: I did not say "insult."] But surely it would have been an insult, if I had applied the language to them. As I have said, I did not know the majority of the names; but there was one which I did recognize, and as he read it, I could not help thinking he read a strong and conclusive argument against the Bill. I refer to the name of Miss Nightingale, and in regard to her I venture to say that if her early years had been passed in preparing for a political life and her maturer years spent in party strife, Miss Nightingale would never have been the Florence Nightingale she has been to us—that tender ministering woman, "gaining more than a hero's glory, winning more than a statesman's renown." I would only add one word, and that is how earnestly I join in the hope and belief that this subject will never be made a party question. But if it should be, with what confidence might I not appeal to every party in this House. I will ask those who sit on this side of the House, and desire to offer the exercise of a free vote to every citizen on the political action of the country, do they wish to see the franchise given to a class ever influenced by others—dependent upon the counsel whether of clergyman, priest or friend—a class violent in time of outbreak, and timid in the time of panic? If the measure is opposed to the Liberal views of those who desire the progress of the Constitution, with what greater confidence may I appeal to those who, now proud in their majority, have accepted the duty of maintaining and preserving the Constitution, founded and based upon its integrity and strength, and upon that home-life in England which is ever influenced by woman's power. Mr. Speaker, you who sit in that Chair without care of political struggle, and without regarding the success of either party, you whose only object is to regulate the peaceful performance of our duties within this chamber, are but the type and representative of a very great power and class in this country. Between the two great conflicting parties of the State, there are those who are careless alike of which succeeds, which is in power, [...]d which has the greater strength [...] They merely demand that our [...] should be framed by us so as to preserve them in peaceful enjoyment of their domestic life, and ere this Bill passes into law, with a voice ever clear, because it will express the instincts of a people, they will demand that it should be cast from this Table, lest by the acceptance of it in a fitful moment we should endanger the prosperity of the people and imperil the greatness and stability of the Empire.

MR. FORSYTH

said, that being unable to reply at so late an hour, he would content himself, as a lawyer, with assuring the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Sir Henry James), that he was entirely wrong in assuming that the measure would enable married women to vote. He had in the strongest legal terms he could use provided against that being the case; but if the Bill was not satisfactory in that respect, he would, if the second reading was agreed to, introduce an express Proviso in Committee.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 152; Noes 187: Majority 35.

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Second Reading put off for six months.

AYES.
Adderley, rt. hn. Sir C.	Corbett, J.
Allen, W. S.	Corry, J. P.
Anderson, G.	Cowan, J.
Anstruther, Sir W.	Cowen, J.
Antrobus, Sir E.	Cross, J. K.
Ashbury, J. L.	Cubitt, G.
Backhouse, E.	Dalway, M. R.
Bateson, Sir T.	Deakin, J. H.
Bathurst, A. A.	Dickson, Major A. G.
Bazley, Sir T.	Dickson, T. A.
Beaumont, Major F.	Dilke, Sir C. W.
Beresford, Colonel M.	Dillwyn, L. L.
Biggar, J. G.	Disraeli, rt. hon. B.
Boord, T. W.	Dixon, G.
Bousfield, Major	Earp, T.
Briggs, W. E.	Elliot, Sir G.
Brise, Colonel R.	Elliot, G.
Brooks, M.	Elphinstone, Sir J. D. H.
Brown, A. H.	Eslington, Lord
Browne, G. E.	Ewing, A. O.
Bruce, rt. hon. Lord E.	Fawcett, H.
Bruce, hon. T.	Eitzmaurice, Lord E.
Burt, T.	Fordyce, W. D.
Callender, W. R.	Forester, C. T. W.
Cameron, C.	Forster, Sir C.
Carter, R. M.	Fraser, Sir W. A.
Cawley, C. E.	Gardner, J. T. Agg-
Chadwick, D.	Gardner, R. Richardson-
Charley, W. T.
Clarke, J. C.	Gordon, rt. hon. E. S.
Clifford, C. C.	Gorst, J. E.
Cobbold, J. P.	Gourley, E. T.

Collins, E.	Greenall, G.
Grieve, J. J.	O'Sullivan, W. H.
Gurney, rt. hon. R.	Palmer, C. M.
Hamond, C. F.	Pender, J.
Harrison, C.	Pennington, F.
Harrison, J. F.	Perkins, Sir F.
Henley, rt. hon. J. W.	Phipps, P.
Hermon, E.	Pim, Captain B.
Hervey, Lord F.	Playfair, rt. hon. L.
Heygate, W. U.	Polhill-Turner, Capt.
Hill, A. S.	Power, R.
Hill, T. R.	Price, W. E.
Hodgson, K. D.	Puleston, J. H.
Holker, Sir, J.	Ramsay, J.
Holms, W.	Richard, H.
Hopwood, C. H.	Richardson, T.
Ingram, W. J.	Round, J.
Jackson, H. M.	Ryder, G. R.
Jenkins, D. J.	Samuelson, B.
Jenkinson, Sir G. S.	Sanderson, T. K.
Johnston, W.	Sandford, G. M. W.
Kinnaird, hon. A. F.	Selwin-Ibbetson, Sir H. J.
Laing, S.
Lambert, N. G.	Sherriff, A. C.
Laverton, A.	Shute, General
Legard, Sir C.	Simon, Mr. Serjeant
Lloyd, M.	Smith, E.
Lush, Dr.	Spinks, Mr. Serjeant
Lusk, Sir A.	Stacpoole, W.
Mackintosh, C. F.	Stewart, M. J.
M'Arthur, A.	Sullivan, A. M.
M'Kenna, Sir J. N.	Taylor, P. A.
M'Lagan, P.	Tennant, R.
M'Laren, D.	Tillett, J. H.
Manners, rt. hn. Lord J.	Torrens, W. T. M'C.
Marten, A. G.	Trevelyan, G. O.
Mellor, T. W.	Villiers, rt. hon. C. P.
Mills, A.	Wait, W. K.
Morley, S.	Watkin, Sir E. W.
Mulholland, J.	Wilson, C.
Mundella, A. J.	Wilson, Sir M.
Neville-Grenville, R.	Yeaman, J.
Noel, E.	Yorke, J. R.
Nolan, Captain
Norwood, C. M.	TELLERS.
O'Clery, K.	Forsyth, W.
O'Shaughnessy, R.	Stansfeld, rt. hon. J.

NOES.
Adam, rt. hon. W. P.	Campbell-Bannerman, H.
Agnew, R. V.
Alexander, Colonel	Carington, hn. Col. W.
Allen, Major	Cartwright, F.
Allsopp, H.	Cartwright, W. C.
Arkwright, A. P.	Cavendish, Lord G.
Ashley, hon. E. M.	Cecil, Lord E. H. B. G.
Baggallay, Sir R.	Chaplin, Colonel E.
Balfour, A. J.	Clive, Col. hon. G. W.
Barclay, A. C.	Clive, G.
Baring, T. C.	Close, M. C.
Barrington, Viscount	Cochrane, A. D. W. R. B.
Bass, A.	Colebrooke, Sir T. E.
Bassett, F.	Cordes, T.
Bates, E.	Corry, hon. H. W. L.
Beach, rt. hn. Sir M. H.	Cowper, hon. H. F.
Bentinck, G. C.	Cross, rt. hon. R. A.
Bentinck, G. W. P.	Dalkeith, Earl of
Bolckow, H. W. F.	Dalrymple, C.
Brassey, T.	Davenport, W. B.
Bright, rt. hon. J.	Davies, R.
Bristowe, S. B.	Denison, W. E.
Butt, I.	Dick, F.
Campbell, C.	Dodson, rt. hon. J. G.

Duff, M. E. G.	Mills, Sir C. H.
Duff, R. W.	Monckton, F.
Dunbar, J.	Monckton, hon. G.
Dyke, W. H.	Monk, C. J.
Dyott, Colonel R.	Moore, A.
Eaton, H. W.	Mowbray, rt. hn. J. R.
Edmonstone, Adm. Sir W.	Mure, Colonel
	Naghten, A. R.
Edwards, H.	Newdegate, C. N.
Egerton, Adm. hon. F.	Newport, Viscount
Egerton, hon. W.	North, Colonel
Elcho, Lord	O'Conor, D. M.
Errington, G.	Onslow, D.
Ferguson, R.	Parker, Lt.-Col. W.
Fielden, J.	Peel, A. W.
French, hon. C.	Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.
Gallwey, Sir W. P.	Pell, A.
Garnier, J. C.	Peploe, Major
Goldney, G.	Plunket, hon. D. R.
Goldsmid, J.	Plunkett, hon. R.
Gooch, Sir D.	Praed, C. T.
Gordon, W.	Praed, H. B.
Gore, J. R. O.	Raikes, H. C.
Gore, W. R. O.	Rendlesham, Lord
Gower, hon. E. F. L.	Repton, G. W.
Greene, E.	Ritchie, C. T.
Gregory, G. B.	Robertson, H.
Hall, A. W.	Roebuck, J. A.
Halsey, T. F.	Rothschild, N. M. de
Hamilton, Lord C. J.	Russell, Lord A.
Hamilton, Lord G.	Scott, M. D.
Hamilton, Marq. of	Shaw, R.
Hamilton, I. T.	Sidebottom, T. H
Hankey, T.	Simonds, W. B.
Harcourt, Sir W. V.	Smith, W. H.
Hardy, rt. hon. G.	Smollett, P. B.
Hardy, J. S.	Smyth, R.
Hartington, Marq. of	Stafford, Marquess of
Hay, rt. hon. Sir J. C. D.	Stanhope, hon. E.
Herbert, H. A.	Starkey, L. R.
Hervey, Lord A. H.	Steere L.
Holland, Sir H. T.	Stuart, Colonel
Hood, Captain hon. A. W. A. N.	Sykes, C.
	Talbot, J. G.
Hope, A. J. B. B.	Tracy, hon. C. R. D. Hanbury-
Horsman, rt. hon. E.
James, Sir H.	Tremayne, J.
James, W. H.	Turner, C.
Jolliffe, hon. S.	Turnor, E.
Kay-Shuttleworth, U. J.	Vivian, H. H.
	Walker, T. E.
Kennard, Colonel	Wallace, Sir R.
Kingscoto, Colonel	Walpole, hon. F.
Knatchbull-Hugessen, rt. hon. E.	Walter, J.
	Waterhouse, S.
Knowles, T.	Waterlow, Sir S. H.
Lawrence, Sir J. C.	Weguelin, T. M.
Learmonth, A.	Welby, W. E.
Leatham, E. A.	Wellesley, Captain
Lefevre, G. J. S.	Whalley, G. H.
Legh, W. J.	Whitbread, S.
Lewis, C. E.	Whitelaw, A.
Lewis, O.	Whitwell, J.
Locke, J.	Wilmot, Sir H.
Lowe, rt. hon. R.	Wilmot, Sir J. E.
Macduff, Viscount	Winn, R.
M'Arthur, W.	Wolff, Sir H. D.
Maitland, J.	Woodd, B. T.
Majendie, L. A.	Wynn, C. W. W.
Makins, Colonel	Yarmouth, Earl of
Malcolm, J. W.	Yorke, hon. E.
March, Earl of	TELLERS.
Marjoribanks, Sir D. C.	Chaplin, H.
Merewether, C. G.	Russell, Sir C.