Part 10
If, then, women’s position is inferior to men’s, if the essential reason of this inferiority is her weakness, or, in other words, the still unchecked dominance of force, to what extent do the facts and figures of the movement towards removing the inferiority of women’s position prove that the idea of the full emancipation of women is, not petty and false, withering and dying, but large and true, holding fast and spreading?
In 1866, a petition for the vote, signed by 1,499 women, was presented to Parliament by John Stuart Mill.
In 1873, petitions for the suffrage from 11,000 women were presented to Gladstone and Disraeli.
In 1896, an appeal was made to members of Parliament by 257,000 women of all classes and parties.
In 1897, 1,285 petitions in favour of a Women’s Suffrage Bill were presented to Parliament, being 800 more petitions than those presented in favour of any other Bill.
In 1867, Mill’s amendment to substitute “person” for “man” in the Representation of the People Act was rejected by a majority of 121.
In 1908, Stanger’s Bill to enable women to vote on the same terms as men passed its second reading by a majority of 179.
In 1893, 1894, and 1895, the franchise was granted to women in New Zealand, Colorado, South Australia, and Utah.
In 1900, 1902, 1903, 1905, 1908, and 1910, the franchise was granted to women in Western Australia, New South Wales, Tasmania, Finland, Norway, Victoria, and the State of Washington.
In 1902, a petition was signed by 750 women graduates.
In 1906, a petition was signed by 1,530 women graduates.
In 1910, the membership of the various Women’s Suffrage Societies, and of bodies of men and women who have declared in favour of the idea of women’s suffrage, is estimated by some at over half a million—a figure subject, no doubt, to great deduction; but certainly also to very great addition for sympathisers who belong to no such societies or bodies.
These, briefly, are the main facts and figures. From them but one conclusion can be drawn. The idea of the full emancipation of women having fulfilled the requirements of steady growth over a long space of years, and giving every promise of further steady growth, is in accord with the principle of Equity; intrinsically just. How long will it remain possible in the service of expediency and force to refuse to this idea its complete fruition; how long will it be wise? For when the limit of wisdom is reached, expediency has obviously become inexpedient and force unworthy.
When out of 670 members of a House of Commons 400 have given pledges to support women’s suffrage; when a measure for the enfranchisement of women on the same terms as men has passed its second reading by a majority of 179, and in face of this declaration of sentiment Government has refused to afford facilities for carrying it into law, there must obviously be some definite hostile factor in the political equation. In a country governed as ours is, it is but natural that those who are, so to speak, trustees for its policy, should not look with favour on any measure which may in their opinion definitely set back that policy, or affect it in some way which they cannot with sufficient clearness foresee. The cause of women, in fact, is a lost dog owned by neither party, distrusted by both. While there is yet danger of being bitten, each watches that dog carefully, holding out a more or less friendly hand. But when the door of the house is safely closed, she may howl her heart out in the cold. The Press, too, with few exceptions is committed to one or other of these parties. To the Press, also, then, the cause of women is a homeless wanderer to whom it is proper to give casual alms, but who can hardly be brought in to the fire, lest she take up the room of the children of the house. And so out of the despair caused by this lost drifting in a vicious circle, out of a position created by party expediency, the inevitable has come to pass. Militant suffragism has arisen—ironically, and, to my thinking, regrettably, since the real spiritual significance and true national benefit of the full emancipation of women will lie in the victory of justice over force; and to employ _what must needs be inferior force_ to achieve the victory of justice over force is not only futile, but so befogging to the whole matter that the essential issue of Equity is more than ever hidden from the mind of the public. Militancy may have served certain purposes, but it has added one more element of fixity to an _impasse_ already existing, for the woman of action is saying, “Until you give me the vote I shall act like this,” and the man of action is answering her, “So long as you act like that I shall not give you the vote. To yield to you would be to admit the efficacy of threats and establish a bad precedent.”
None the less, human nature being what it is, militancy was inevitable, and the wise will look at the situation, not as it was, or might be, but as it is. We must consider what effect that situation is having on the national character. Every little outrage committed on men by women is met by a little outrage committed on women by men; and each time one of these mutual outrages takes place, tens of thousands of minds in this country are blunted in that most sensitive quality, gentleness. It is idle to pretend that women have not stood, and do not still stand, to men as the chief reason for being gentle; that men have not, and do not still stand to women, in the same capacity. By every little mutual outrage, then, the beneficence of sex is being weakened, its maleficence awakened throughout the land. And the harm which is thus being done is so impalpable, so subtle, as to be beyond the power of most to notice at all, and surely beyond the power of statesmen to assess. That is the mischief. The scent is stealing away out of the flower of our urbanity. It will be long before the gardeners discover how odourless and arid that flower has become.
For it is not so much the action of the militant women themselves, nor that of those who are suppressing them, which is doing this subtle harm. It is the effect of this scrimmage on the spectators; the coarsening, and hardening, and general embitterment; the secret glorification of the worst side of the sex instinct; the constant exaltation of the rule of force; the rapid growth of a rankling sense of injustice amongst tens of thousands of women. To say that hundreds of thousands of women are opposed, or indifferent, to the full emancipation of their sex is not, in truth, to say very much. No civilizing movement was ever brought to fruition save in the face of the indifference or opposition of the majority. What proportion of agricultural labourers were actively concerned to win for themselves the vote? How small a fraction of the people actively demanded free education! But when these privileges were won, what number of those for whom they were won would have been willing to resign them? If women were fully emancipated to-morrow, many would certainly resent what they would deem a blow at the influence and power already wielded by them in virtue of their sex. But in two years’ time how many would be willing to surrender their freedom? As certainly, not ten in a hundred! To compare the disapproval of women raised against their wills to a state of emancipation in which they can remain inactive if they like with the bitter resentment spreading like slow poison in the veins of those who fruitlessly demand emancipation is to compare the energy of vanishing winter snow with that of the spring sun which melts it.
In an age when spirituality has ever a more desperate struggle to maintain hold at all against the inroads of materialism, any increase of bitterness in the national life, any loss of gentleness, aspiration, and mutual trust between the sexes, however silent, secret, and unmeasurable, is, surely, a serious thing. Justice, neglected, works her own insidious revenge. Every month, every year, the germs of bitterness and brutality will be spreading. If any think that this people has gentleness to spare, and can afford to tamper with the health of its spirit, they are mistaken. If any think that repression can put an end to this aspiration—again they are mistaken. The idea of the full emancipation of women is so rooted that nothing can now uproot it.
But, apart from the political _impasse_, there are those who, satisfied that women have not the political aptitude of men, are chiefly opposed to the granting of the vote for fear that it will come to mean the return of women to Parliament. Now, if their conviction regarding the inferiority of women’s political capacity be sound—as I for one, speaking generally, am inclined to believe—there is no danger of women being returned to Parliament save in such small numbers as to make no matter. If it be unsound—if the political capacity of woman be equal to man’s—it is time Parliament were reinforced by women’s presence. New waters soon find their level. Nor are such as distrust the political capacities of women qualified to prophesy a flood. To debar women for fear of their competition is a policy of little spirit, and not one that the men of this country will consciously adopt, unless we have indeed lost the fire of our fathers. There are many, too, who believe that the granting of the vote to women will increase the emotional element in an electorate whose emotional side they already distrust, and thereby endanger our relations with foreign Powers. But it has yet to be proved that women are, in a wide sense of the word, more emotional than men; and, even conceding that they are, why forget that they will bring to the consideration of international matters the solid reinforcement of two qualities—the first, a practical domestic sense lacking to men, and likely to foster national reluctance to plunge into wild-cat wars, the second, a greater faculty for self-sacrifice, tending to fortify national determination to persist in a war once undertaken. It is well known that during the American Civil War the women of the Southern States displayed a spirit of resistance even more heroic than that of their men folk. But, in any case, to retain women in their present state of social and political inferiority for reasons which are so debatable savours, surely, somewhat of the sultanic. We have, in fact, yet to imbibe the spirit of Mill’s wisest saying: “Amongst all the lessons which men require for carrying on the struggle against the evident imperfections of their lot on earth, there is no lesson which they more need than not to add to the evils which Nature inflicts, by their jealous and prejudiced restrictions on one another.”
In fine, out of the practical perplexities brooding over this whole matter there is no way save by resort to the first principles of gentility. It has been uncontrovertibly established that there is in this country a great and ever-increasing body of women suffering from a bitter sense of injustice. What course then, compatible with true gentility, is left open to us men? Our whole social life is in essence but a long, slow, striving for the victory of justice over force; and this demand of our women for full emancipation is but a sign of that striving. Are we not bound in honour to admit this simple fact? Shall we not at last give fulfilment to this idea—with the due caution that should mark all political experiment? Has not, in truth, the time come for us to say: From this resistance to the claims of Equity; from this bitter and ungracious conflict with those weaker than ourselves; from this slow poisoning of the well-springs of our national courtesy, and kindliness, and sense of fair play: “Gentles, let us rest!”
II
APPEAL TO THE PRESS (A Letter to the _Daily News_, 1911.)
I write as a supporter of woman’s suffrage, but not of militant suffragism. Whenever I have remonstrated with a militant Suffragist I have received this answer:
“We could not keep the movement before the eyes of the public without militant tactics, because the papers, with two or three exceptions, would not report peaceful work. For this reason we adopted our methods, and the event has justified us. We have advanced the cause—simply by forcing it on people’s attention in the only way open to us—more in the last three years than those who pursued peaceful methods had done in the last forty.”
Whatever may now be the feelings and intentions of the militant Suffragists, this answer did undoubtedly set forth the true reason for the inception of militant tactics.
All political and social movements in this country depend for vitality on catching the eye and the thought of the community. And we may draw one of two alternative morals from that prolonged silence of the Press towards woman’s suffrage which originally brought about the campaign of violence: Either, that men having possession of the organs of public opinion, deliberately kept them closed to the discussion of the political rights of women—a supposition, I should prefer not to entertain. Or, that reports of violence and sensationalism are more sought after than tales of reason and sobriety! Whichever the moral drawn, it is very discreditable to public feeling in this country.
Is it too late for those who are responsible for the Press to take the lead in removing that stigma? It is lugubrious that, in our England of free speech and fair play, in this nation hitherto supposed to excel in political sense, women should have found it necessary to advocate and advertise by mere sensationalism a political and social movement of more wide-reaching and universal nature than any now before the public; a movement of such epoch-making character that few people have at present grasped its real significance. Surely it is important that the people of this country should be educated in the reason and the rights of a question such as this. But in order that they may be so educated it is necessary that they should read, not the account of how “So-and-so’s windows were broken,” or of how “Such an one was arrested,” but arguments presented in speech and writing for and against suffrage.
The extent to which the formation of public opinion on any political measure depends on the publication in the Press of reason, _pro_ and _con._, can be seen from the growth of the Tariff Reform Party, which a few years ago was a negligible faction. The imminence and gravity of this issue of woman’s suffrage can no longer be denied. It has to be faced. It will have to be decided. Does the Press of this country wish it to be decided by an electorate utterly unversed in its merits and demerits? Would the Press of this country wish any big political or social measure to be so decided? Is it just, generous, or politic that, when women try by peaceful and constitutional means to promulgate their cause, there should be silence? If there had not been this silence, militant suffragism would never have been born. By the removal of this silence militant suffragism may still be helped towards a natural death.
I appeal to all editors (whether friends or enemies of the movement), who have already shown themselves alive to what is rapidly becoming the desperate importance of this issue, to combine and advocate an alteration of the general Press policy—to advocate the throwing open of all journals to fair and full report, not of the sensational, but of the reasonable, sides, for and against, of woman’s suffrage. For, whether consciously or unconsciously, the general Press policy has hitherto been most unfortunate, and is fast contributing to the growth of a bitter feeling between the sexes, in the last degree noxious to the national life.
ON SOCIAL UNREST
(A Paper in the _Daily Mail_, 1912.)
“This is a psychological question, a matter of mental states” (H. G. Wells). It is. And in examining these mental states there are two, out of many factors, on which I do not think too much emphasis can be laid, not only because they are in themselves vital to the evil, but because they both arise from the same prime underlying deficiency in our national life.
The first is the influence on society at large produced by the great and rapid growth of the fiduciary element in the conduct of commercial enterprise and landed estates. The agent, the director, the manager, the trustee, have almost entirely displaced the old-time owner, merchant, and manufacturer, who did business by and for themselves.
A class has been created who, already in a state of professional altruism, are impervious, and on the face of it rightly impervious, to altruism of any other kind.
What large business nowadays is not conducted as a limited company by a board of directors appointed and paid by the shareholders as trustees to produce for them a maximum of profit? What large estate is not managed by a paid agent on the same principle? And, however generous our aspirations, which of us does not know the deflecting power of trusteeship, rigidified, as it is, by law and by the sense that we are paid for the performance of a job inimical to generosity? True—the rates of wages and of rent come not under rules but under the broad heading of policy; and, in deep reality, I suspect it to be equally true that the maximum of generosity ministers _in the long run_ to the maximum of stability and profit; nevertheless there can be no doubt whatever that the trustee system not only befogs and deadens the human relationship between employer and employed, but affords an overwhelming support to our natural instinct to take the immediate view and line of least resistance.
Broadly speaking, where there is trusteeship, as trusteeship is now understood, there is no wide view of the relation of Capital to Labour in the light of the good of Society as a whole; there is only a faithful, cold-blooded, purblind service for the benefit of a _cestui que trust_, who is himself freed from a sense of personal responsibility and from all apparent need for a wide and human outlook. The trustee system, if not already, will soon be universal, and I see no means of counteracting its secret, dangerous, and irritating effect on the mind of Labour, save by such process of education as shall soak the spirit of the prosperous classes with an altogether larger and saner feeling of the fundamental unity and interdependence of Society, with a good-will so vastly increased that the shareholder and _cestui que trust_ shall no longer require the director or trustee to consider them and them alone, but bid him instead consider equally the interests of the employed. Such a mood of altruism is now, roughly speaking, absent from the minds of the prosperous classes; and to attain to it is a consummation that I fear will never come about under our present system of education.
The second influence on which I would lay great emphasis is the state of mind produced by our system of education in the young of the prosperous classes at our private and public schools, and, to a less extent, at our universities. Before dwelling on this let me suggest two truths. In life, where a fortunate person is brought into contact with one less fortunate, the first step towards cordial relationship must obviously come from the fortunate. For human nature is happily so constituted that the less fortunate feels ashamed to make advances which, liable to misconstruction, are not compatible with self-respect. Every man of any worth can test, indeed is testing, this truth continually in his own life; it cannot indeed be doubted. Again, where advances are made by the fortunate from sheer friendliness and without ulterior motive, they most certainly evoke response in the same friendly spirit from all save exceptional churls.
Now, since these primary truths concerning human nature underlie the whole question of Labour Unrest, it becomes of the first importance to consider how far the young of the prosperous classes are made actively familiar with them. How far are the legions at our private and public schools (those legions from whom the ranks of Capital are, in the main, recruited) made to understand, and—more than understand—to _feel_ that they are fortunate, that Labour is less fortunate, that they will have to live their lives in interdependence with Labour, and that if they do not make—out of a free and fine heart make—the first advances to good-fellowship with less fortunate Labour, those advances can—by a law, and a good law, of human nature—never be made? How far are they at present brought up to see this? I would go so far as to say—hardly at all. In my day at a public school—and I have no reason at all to hope that, whatever be the exceptions, the general rule has greatly changed—the Universe was divided into ourselves and “outsiders,” “bounders,” “chaws,” “cads,” or whatever more or less offensive name best seemed to us to characterise those less fortunate than ourselves. It is true that we applied the name mainly to the lower ranks of Capital rather than to actual Labour, but this was only because we lived so far away from industrial workers that we never even thought of them. Such working folk as we actually came into personal contact with we never dreamed of associating with any such offensive thought in our minds or speech on our tongues; but, generally, the working man did not exist for us except as a person outside, remote, and almost inimical. From our homes, touched already by this class feeling, caught up from political talk by chance overheard, we went to private schools, where the teaching of manners, mainly under clerical supervision, effectually barred us from any contaminating influence; so that if by chance we encountered the “lower class” boy we burned to go for him and correct his “cheek.” Thence we were passed into the great “caste” factory, a public school, where the feeling became, by mere process of being left to itself, as set and hard as iron. It is true that a levelling process went on among the boys themselves, so that a duke’s son was no more accounted of than a stockbroker’s, but nevertheless all learned to consider themselves “the elect.” Of ten public schoolboys, seven have come from “caste-”infected homes and private schools, and have active prejudice already. The remaining three may still be open-minded or indifferent; of these, two will infallibly follow the sway of the herd instinct; one may perhaps develop a line of his own, or adhere to the influence of a home inimical to “caste,” and become a “smug” or Radical. In result, failing definite sustained effort to break up a narrow “caste” feeling, the public school presents a practically solid phalanx of the fortunate, insulated against real knowledge of, or sympathy with, the less fortunate. This phalanx marches out into the professions, into business, into the universities, where, it is true, some awaken to a sense of wider values—but not too many. From the point of view of any one who tries to see things as they are, and see them as a whole, there is something terrific about this automatic “caste” moulding of the young. And in the present condition of our country it is folly, and dangerous folly, to blink it.[6]