§ Mr. TOUCHEasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of his words of encouragement to the deputation of working women from the East End on 20th June, 838W when he stated that, if the franchise were to be extended to women, it should be on a thoroughly democratic basis and on the same terms as to men, it is the intention of the Government to give facilities for an Amendment extending the suffrage to women on this basis, leaving it an open question to the free judgment of the House of Commons when next the Government fulfils its promise to introduce a Franchise and Registration Bill, to which they were pledged so long ago as 1908; or have the Government now receded from that pledge or do they regard it as lapsed by effluxion of time?
§ The PRIME MINISTERI dealt fully with this matter in my speeches in the House on 27th January and 16th May, 1913, and I can add nothing to what I then slated. I am not aware that anything that I said to the Deputation on 20th June had any bearing on this subject.