CHAPTER IX

THE LAST PHASE

"It consists of an influx—whence or why none can tell—of a wave of vitality. It is as if from the central heart of life a ray broke suddenly upon the world, inspiring men to feel deeply, to live greatly, to do nobly. It makes men. It is not made by men."

Without belittling the importance of the wave of enthusiasm for women's enfranchisement which swept over the English-speaking world in 1916, it is impossible to disguise the fact that we in England won our battle at the exact moment we did in consequence of the absolute necessity under which the Government laboured of producing a new parliamentary register and a new voting qualification for men. For this meant that a real reform of the representation of the people was required; and the previous stages of our political struggle had demonstrated that when once the franchise question was dealt with by Parliament it would be impossible any longer to neglect the claims of women.

It will be remembered that so long ago as 1892 Mr. A. J. Balfour had said in a suffrage debate in Parliament:

"If any further alteration of the franchise is brought forward as a practical measure, this question [the enfranchisement of women] will again arise, menacing and ripe for solution, and it will not be possible for this House to set it aside as a mere speculative plan advocated by a group of faddists. Then you will have to deal with the problem of women's suffrage, and deal with it in a complete fashion."

The moment which Mr. Balfour foresaw in 1892 had arrived in 1916. The situation was briefly thus: The old register for the whole United Kingdom, unrevised by the express direction of the Government since the outbreak of the world war, contained the names of rather over eight million men, of whom almost seven millions voted as "occupiers" or householders. There were other qualifications, such as the lodger, freehold, and University franchises; but they only accounted, between them, for about a million voters in the three kingdoms. "Occupation" was, therefore, by far the most important of the qualifications for the exercise of the parliamentary franchise. To qualify as an "occupier" it was, however, necessary to prove the unbroken occupation of the qualifying premises for twelve months previous to the last 15th of July. This obviously necessitated in some cases continuous residence for nearly two years. From August, 1914, onwards at least five millions of men, either actual or potential voters, had volunteered for the Navy or Army, or had moved, in obedience to national demands, to munition areas, or other places where they were required. Consequently very large numbers had ceased to be "occupiers" in the sense legally required to enable them to become, or remain, voters.

The Government and the country were therefore, in the third year of the war, face to face with the impossible position that if circumstances necessitated an appeal to the country there was in existence no register of voters which could in any sense be looked upon as representative of the manhood of the nation. The elderly, the infirm, the shirker, the crank, who had remained at home evading military service, and "the conscientious objector," would remain on the old and obsolete register in full numerical strength; the young manhood of the nation who were fighting for it in the Navy, or the Air Service, or on the dreary swamps of Flanders, or the tremendous battlefields round Ypres or on the Somme, would in large proportion have forfeited their parliamentary votes in consequence of the services they were rendering to their country. It was an intolerable situation. By-elections which from time to time took place illustrated the extraordinarily non-representative character of the old register. Candidates and agents reported the existence of street after street in which only a handful of voters remained. It would have been impossible to dissolve on such a register, and even if it had been possible, Mr. Asquith had himself declared that a Parliament elected on such a register would be "lacking in moral sanction."

It will be remembered that the House elected in 1910 had passed an Act limiting the duration of all future Parliaments to five years. If there had been no war the dissolution must therefore have taken place by 1915; but as a General Election, except on sheer necessity, could not be contemplated during the war, the operation of the five years' limit was more than once suspended by legislation. This, however, was only postponing the problem, and did not afford any solution of it.

Mr. Asquith's first War Cabinet had suddenly collapsed in May, 1915, and had been succeeded by the first Coalition Government. Mr. Asquith remained Prime Minister, but among his colleagues were now found representatives of the three chief parties—Liberal, Conservative, and Labour. Mr. Redmond, as leader of the Irish Nationalists, was also asked to join it, but declined to do so. The changes involved in this reconstitution of the Government were in several ways favourable to the suffrage movement: not a few of our most bigoted opponents were among the Liberals who were shed by Mr. Asquith when he formed his Coalition Government, whilst among his new colleagues were now to be found convinced suffragists, such as Mr. A. J. Balfour, Mr. Bonar Law, Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Lytton, Lord Selborne, Mr. Arthur Henderson, etc. The formation of the coalition was favourable to us in another sense. Party discipline and party passion had always been inimical to our movement. "Yes, I am your friend, but I am not prepared to break up my party in order to support you," said one party leader. "Yes, I am your friend, but I tell you frankly, you must not count on my vote if the success of women's suffrage would mean the withdrawal from public life of my leader, Mr. Asquith," said another. I had been accustomed to say of the two chief parties, Liberal and Conservative, that from the suffrage point of view the first was an army without generals, and the second was generals without an army. The Coalition gave us the immense advantage of bringing these two indispensable elements of success together, and parliamentary suffragists became equally strong in both officers and men. The commander-in-chief, Mr. Asquith, was still our opponent, but, as described in the last chapter, we began to see signs that even he was prepared to recognize that he was beaten, and to ask for an armistice.

When 1916 arrived no solution of the franchise problem had been found; the creation of a new register before a General Election could be held was generally recognized as necessary, but there were no signs of agreement upon the principles on which it should be based. The end of the war seemed as far off as ever. Compulsory military service for men had been adopted, and this strengthened the demand for manhood suffrage on the very reasonable ground that if a man could be compelled to offer his life for his country, he should at least have some influence, as a voter, in controlling the policy which might cause such a sacrifice to be called for.

Contemporaneously with these events and new developments, Sir Edward Carson and a group of his parliamentary supporters were urging with considerable vigour that there should be a new franchise based on military service. In a sense he had a strong position, for it was an obvious absurdity that men offering their lives for their country should incidentally to the fulfilment of that service be struck off the parliamentary register, while every waster and do-nothing who managed to stay at home maintaining his occupation franchise would have the vote. We made some unsuccessful efforts to induce Sir Edward Carson so to define his definition of "service" as to include the services of women. Meanwhile, there was a great deal of discussion socially and in the Press about the possibility of basing the vote on national service of some kind.

On May 4th, 1916, we addressed a careful letter to Mr. Asquith on the points raised by the obsolete register and the necessity for a new one, and also for a new qualification for the franchise. We said that nothing was farther from our intention than to press our claim at such a moment if the Government was contemplating legislation simply to replace on the register those men who had lost their qualification in consequence of their service in the Navy or Army, or in munition areas in parts of the country other than those where they had formerly resided. But we stated that if the Government intended to meet the situation by altering the whole basis of the parliamentary franchise and founding it on national service, whether naval, military, or industrial, we should then use our utmost endeavours to induce a favourable consideration at the same time of the national services of women. After referring to some of the very important work of women during the war, we added:

"When the Government deals with the franchise, an opportunity will present itself of dealing with it on wider lines than by the simple removal of what may be called the accidental disqualification of a large body of the best men in the country, and we trust that you may include in your Bill clauses which would remove the disabilities under which women now labour. An agreed Bill on these lines would, we are confident, receive a very wide measure of support throughout the country. Our movement has received very great accessions of strength during recent months, former opponents now declaring themselves on our side, or, at any rate, withdrawing their opposition. The change of tone in the Press is most marked.... The view has been widely expressed in a great variety of organs of public opinion that the continued exclusion of women from representation will ... be an impossibility after the war."

Mr. Asquith replied almost immediately.

"10, Downing Street, "Whitehall, S.W., "_May 7th, 1916_.

"Dear Mrs. Fawcett,

"I have received your letter of the 4th. I need not assure you how deeply my colleagues and I recognize and appreciate the magnificent contribution which the women of the United Kingdom have made to the maintenance of our country's cause.

"No such legislation as you refer to is at present in contemplation; but if, and when, it should become necessary to undertake it, you may be certain that the considerations set out in your letter will be fully and impartially weighed without any prejudgment from the controversies of the past.

"Yours very faithfully, "H. H. Asquith."

This reply was, we considered, very much more encouraging than any previous letter which we had received from Mr. Asquith. There were some suffragists who did not fail to point out that it promised us nothing. This we did not dispute, but we felt, all the same, that the letter indicated that the turn of the tide in the suffrage direction was taking effect, and that vessels which had long been high and dry on the sandbanks of prejudice were beginning to be floated, and would soon swing round.

On May 7th, Mr. Asquith had said in his letter, "no such legislation as you refer to is at present in contemplation." Nevertheless, it was plain two weeks later from the Prime Minister's replies to questions in the House that this attitude had already been abandoned. The Government then began a series of futile efforts to deal with the problems presented by the situation just described by means of "Special Register" Bills. None of these plans secured the support of the House of Commons. Mr. Asquith shrank from the thorough-going method of solving the problem by introducing a Reform Bill which should frankly provide a new basis for the suffrage. Such a course, he said, would bring the House "face to face with another most formidable proposition," the question of women's suffrage. Sir Edward Carson was meanwhile pressing for a new franchise giving the vote to all sailors, soldiers, and airmen, on the ground of their services. The comment of the Press on this was: "It is clear that the Bill cannot include the soldiers and exclude the women." The hesitation and reluctance of the Government to face the facts went on all through July. It was the same attitude which had caused the fiasco of the Government Bill in January, 1913 when an attempt had been made to pass a Reform Bill at the tail-end of a Session already thirteen months long by calling it a Registration Bill. On July 12th, 1916, Mr. Asquith said that the Government, not having been able to find any practical and non-controversial solution of the registration question, proposed that the House itself should settle the matter. This was not a popular method of proceeding, but the proposition was wrapped up with Mr. Asquith's well-known skill as a master of parliamentary oratory; and though the House grumbled it was not in revolt. A week later, however, the same theme was expounded with much less than the Prime Minister's tact by Mr. Herbert Samuel, another well-known antisuffragist, who enraged the House of Commons by saying in effect the same thing as Mr. Asquith, but in a manner which made it plain, even to the wayfaring man, that it was because the difficulty was insoluble that the Government requested the House of Commons to solve it. He set forth all the difficulties. Something had got to be done; the old register was useless; a new register on the old basis would be nearly as bad, since it would disfranchise our fighting men; and therefore the House would have to take up the difficult controversial points of women's suffrage, plural voting, adult suffrage, and redistribution. The indignation of the House on being told bluntly that the problem was handed to them to solve because it was insoluble caused it to reject the Government proposal; the matter was thrown back by the House to the Cabinet, who were told to do their own job; they therefore began another period of "lengthy consideration."

In the previous spring a leading member of our Executive Committee, Miss Rathbone, now President of the N.U.S.E.C.,[7] had formed a consultative committee of constitutional women's suffrage societies, representative of twenty different organizations. This consultative committee sought and obtained early in August an interview with Lord Robert Cecil and Mr. Bonar Law. The deputation urged the necessity for the enfranchisement of women in time for them to take part in the election of the Parliament which would have to deal with the problems of reconstruction after the war; they also repeated that if the new register simply replaced on the roll of voters those men who had forfeited their vote in consequence of their patriotic services, we should not, during the war, raise the question of women's suffrage at all; but if the whole basis of the suffrage were changed we should press the consideration of women's claims with all the strength at our command. Mr. Bonar Law expressed satisfaction with this attitude, but asked if the suffrage societies would stand aside if the period of residence required of future male voters was reduced from twelve months to three. The reply was in the negative, because this change would in reality be equivalent to a new suffrage, and would add many thousands of men to the roll of voters. Lord Robert Cecil warmly supported this view, and said that the reduction in the qualifying period would constitute a long step towards manhood suffrage, and would seriously injure the position of women if nothing were done for them at the same time.

We were getting now very near the keep of the antisuffrage fortress. We heard of very prolonged and ardent discussions in the Cabinet on our question, during which the protagonists on our side were Mr. Lloyd George, Lord Robert Cecil, and Mr. Arthur Henderson, representing severally the Liberal, Conservative, and Labour Parties. Mr. Asquith and other antisuffragists clung to the position of simply replacing on the parliamentary register those men who had forfeited their vote through ceasing to be occupiers. This, however, was but rumour. What we knew as a positive fact was that the makeshift proposals brought by the Government before Parliament were rejected one after another. August 13th and 14th, 1916, were days of first-rate importance in the history of our movement. On the 13th the _Observer_, the well-known Conservative Sunday paper, up to that time a determined opponent of women's enfranchisement, contained an editorial completely and thoroughly withdrawing its opposition. Among other excellent things the editor, Mr. Garvin, wrote: "Time was when I thought that men alone maintained the State. Now I know that men alone never could have maintained it, and that henceforth the modern State must be dependent on men and women alike for the progressive strength and vitality of its whole organization."

On the 14th Mr. Asquith, introducing yet another Special Register Bill, announced in the House of Commons a similar change of view. After acknowledging in a very handsome way the great national value of the services rendered by women to their country during the war, saying that these had been as effective as those of any other part of the population, he added:

"It is true they cannot fight in the sense of going out with rifles and so forth, but they fill our munition factories; they have aided in the most effective way in the prosecution of the war. What is more—and this is a point which makes a special appeal to me—they say, when the war comes to an end, and when these abnormal, and of course to a large extent transient, conditions have to be revised, and when the process of industrial reconstruction has to be set on foot, have not the women a special claim to be heard on the many questions which will arise directly affecting their interests, and possibly meaning for them large displacements of labour? I cannot think that this House will deny that, and _I say quite frankly that I cannot deny that claim_."

We anxiously scanned these words, looking for loopholes from which the Prime Minister might escape from giving his support in future to the principle of women's suffrage; but we found none. This speech in effect made the Liberal Party into a Suffrage Party; it therefore indicated an enormous advance in the parliamentary history of our movement.

Our future course at the time was not all quite such plain sailing as it may appear now to those who only look back upon it. The skill of the parliamentary leader consists in providing steps or ladders from which his followers can advance from a more backward to a less backward position without personal humiliation, and without calling for moral courage as great as Mr. Garvin had shown when, in the leading article already quoted, he said in so many words, "I formerly thought so-and-so, and so-and-so; I was wrong." There were, accordingly, conferences within the precincts of the House of Commons between representatives of the suffrage societies and our leading parliamentary supporters on such points as the most we could safely ask for, and the least we could be induced to accept. At these conferences Sir John Simon took a very leading part. When he was present we felt we had as our ally a man of an extraordinarily alert intelligence, capable at once of appreciating our point of view, and with unequalled readiness in showing how it could be carried out. I remember his coming in late at one of these conferences in a committee-room of the House of Commons; we had been expounding a particular point to a group of M.P.'s who seemed neither to understand its significance nor capable of offering any suggestion as to its realization. The atmosphere changed directly Sir John Simon took his seat at the table. "Yes, I see the importance of your point," he said at once; "and you can give effect to it," he added, taking the current Special Register Bill in his hand, "by an amendment in line 5, clause 2. I will speak to the Prime Minister about it this evening." It was an immense relief to our anxieties to have a man of this practical and capable type working for us. On August 22nd he handed in to the clerk at the table of the House of Commons the following resolution; it never materialized, but it indicated the line which an important group of our friends in the House were taking, and the general agreement that had been arrived at by the great majority of suffrage societies:

"That, in the opinion of the House, the Parliament to deal with industrial and social reconstruction after the war should be elected on a wide and simple franchise exercised by both men and women, and therefore legislation establishing such franchise is urgently required and should be passed during the war."

From this point onwards it is no exaggeration to say that Sir John Simon was, from a parliamentary point of view, the organizer of victory. The only real obstacle which now confronted us was the plausible plea that, however desirable women's suffrage was in itself, it was not the time during the most gigantic war in history to raise this great question of constitutional reform. It was our business to show that _now was the time_ when such a reform was not only desirable, but absolutely necessary. The new register and the new qualification were needed without delay unless millions of the best men in the country were to be disfranchised on account of their national services. Women should be included in the new register on the grounds given by Mr. Asquith in the speech just quoted. When we were attacked, as we were, by antisuffragists for our lack of patriotism for raising our question during the war, we had an easy answer. We had not raised it. It had raised itself as a consequence of the war and of the peculiar character of the qualification laid down by former Parliaments for the occupation franchise.

It was some time, however, before the Government itself grasped the situation from this point of view. Before Parliament adjourned for a short vacation in August, 1916, Mr. Walter Long, a typical English country gentleman, then Colonial Secretary, a Conservative and antisuffragist, made it clear that he too had withdrawn his opposition to the enfranchisement of women. It was to him we owed the suggestion that the whole question of the parliamentary register and the qualifications for voting should be referred to a non-party conference, consisting of members of both Houses of Parliament, and presided over by the Speaker of the House of Commons. He said, after reciting the difficulties of the situation: "It is our duty, one and all ... to set ourselves to find a solution which will be a lasting settlement of a very old and difficult problem." Mr. Asquith concurred, and, answering by anticipation those who argued that it was unpatriotic during the war to be considering questions of franchise reform, said that it was "eminently desirable" that those not actually absorbed in the conduct of the war should work out a general agreement as regards these difficult questions of parliamentary reform. The Electoral Reform Conference, with the Speaker as chairman, was appointed in October, 1916, on the reassembling of both Houses after the recess. Of course it was not only women's suffrage which it was asked to consider, but the whole franchise question, including adult suffrage, plural voting, proportional representation, etc. The Speaker, Mr. J. Lowther, had a high reputation for fairness, for great personal tact and courtesy, for humour, and all which it stands for in the management of men, but he was believed to be a strong antisuffragist. The question of women was not emphasized in Parliament when the conference was appointed, but there can be no doubt that it was the real motive power which had created it. The members of the conference were of all parties and of both Houses, and, according to the Speaker's knowledge and belief, suffragists and antisuffragists were given an equal number of representatives on it. I always said that it was an illustration of the intense strength and vitality of our movement that, though the conference was proposed by one antisuffragist (Mr. Long), supported by another (Mr. Asquith), and presided over by a third (the Speaker), yet, as a result of its deliberations, some measure of women's enfranchisement was recommended by a large majority of its members. The conference, in fact, provided one of those ladders, referred to on a previous page, which enable men to escape gracefully from an untenable position. It held its first meeting on October 12th, 1916. Sir John Simon was a member of it, and a remarkably skilful leader on our side. He was ably supported by Mr. (now Sir) W. H. Dickinson, Mr. Aneurin Williams, Sir William Bull (Conservative), and Mr. Goldstone (Labour). The deliberations were kept absolutely secret. The N.U.W.S.S. asked to be allowed to give evidence. The request was declined. We then drew up a memorandum emphasizing the chief points on which we had desired to give evidence. A copy of this was sent to every member of the conference. A large number of resolutions from political associations, town councils, women's societies, trade unions, trade and labour councils, etc., supporting the claims of women to representation were also sent to the Speaker as chairman of the conference. The report was not published until January 28th, 1917. But the mere existence of the conference began to influence the action of Parliament much earlier than this. On November 12th, the last of the Government's Special Register Bills was withdrawn. The Bill was condemned by the House because the Speaker ruled all widening amendments out of order, and as the House desired widening amendments the Bill collapsed.

In the interval, before the conference had reported, the whirligig of time brought about another Cabinet crisis, which was eminently favourable to us. Mr. Asquith's Government fell, and in mid-December Mr. Lloyd George became Prime Minister. On Christmas Day, 1916, I received a letter from a very important public man, who told me that now was the psychological moment for taking a forward step in the direction of the immediate enfranchisement of women. He had angered me by assuming that, because we had not rioted, and had throughout the war only sought to serve our country, we had done nothing. So I told him in outline what we had done, and why we had done it. He replied: "I am going to read your letter at the Prime Minister's to-morrow." On December 27th I heard from him again. "I talked for some time last night with the Prime Minister, who is very keen on the subject [of women's suffrage], and very practical too." After this I knew our victory in the immediate future was secured, however the Speaker's conference reported.

It was at first questioned whether the Cabinet crisis and the formation of a new Government would not mean the suspension of the work of the Speaker's conference. But in answer to a specific enquiry the new Prime Minister emphatically expressed his desire that the conference should continue its labours. After three and a half months' work the report of the conference was placed in Mr. Lloyd George's hands. It unanimously recommended thirty-three very drastic reforms in the franchise, the most important of which were to base the parliamentary franchise for men on residence and not on "occupation," the adoption of proportional representation, and a great simplification of the Local Government Register. On women's suffrage the conference was not unanimous, but by a majority, which we were privately assured was considerable, it recommended that some form of women's suffrage should be conferred.[8] This was hailed with almost universal enthusiasm by the Press. There was a general chorus of approbation and congratulation.

The changes in the franchise for men amounted in effect almost to manhood suffrage; but the suffrage for women which was recommended amounted practically to household suffrage for women, with a higher age limit than that fixed for men. For purposes of the franchise women were to be reckoned as "householders," not only when they were so in their own right, but also when they were the wives of householders. There was some outcry against this on the part of ardent suffragists as being derogatory to the independence of women. While understanding this objection, I did not share it; I felt, on the contrary, that it marked an important advance in that it recognized in a practical political form a universally accepted and most valuable social fact—namely, the partnership of the wife and mother in the home. We did object to, and strongly protested against, the absurdly high age limit for women (thirty to thirty-five) suggested by the Speaker's conference, especially on the ground that a very large proportion of the women working industrially would be thereby disfranchised. It is only fair, however, to mention the motive which had prompted this recommendation. One main objection of the antisuffragists to our enfranchisement was that the number of women in this country was about one and a half million in excess of the number of men. It was therefore plausible, although fallacious, to say that women's suffrage would result in making over the government of the country to women. What was desired by the friends of women's suffrage in the Speaker's conference was accordingly the creation of a constituency in which women, though substantially represented, would not be in a majority. The changes in the representation of men would, it was believed, raise the number of men on the register from eight to ten millions; while the number of women enfranchised, as householders and wives of householders, would not, as it was thought, be more than six or seven millions. This, it was correctly anticipated, the House of Commons would accept with practical unanimity, whilst the fate of a wider franchise would be, to say the least, doubtful. The thirty years age limit for women was quite indefensible logically; but it was practically convenient in getting rid of a bogie whose unreality a few years' experience would probably prove by demonstration. We remembered Disraeli's dictum, "England is not governed by logic, but by Parliament."

A similar but more objectionable method of reducing mechanically the number of women voters had been adopted in Norway in 1907, and had lasted for six years, after which women were placed on the register on terms exactly the same as those for men. Events in the Session of 1919 show that it is very unlikely that the higher age limit for women will be maintained in Great Britain for so long a time. It may here be mentioned that the actual numbers both of men and women enfranchised by the Reform Act of 1918 turned out to be larger than had been calculated when the Bill was before Parliament. On the first register compiled in 1918 there were over 7,000,000 women, and the official figures of the number of men and women on the revised register published in 1919 were: men electors, 12,913,160; women, 8,479,156.

From the date of the presentation of the report of the Speaker's conference our parliamentary success went forward rapidly, smoothly, and without check. On March 29th the Prime Minister received a great deputation of women war workers, organized by the N.U.W.S.S., representing every possible form of active service by which women had worked for their country during the war. The deputation also had the support of between thirty and forty women's organizations, including nearly all the existing suffrage societies, besides such well-known bodies as the British Women's Temperance Association, the National Union of Women Workers, the National Organization of Girls' Clubs, and the Women's Co-operative Guild, etc. It had been the intention of this deputation to ask the Prime Minister to introduce without delay legislation based on the recommendations of the Speaker's conference. But we found ourselves in the joyful position of being a day after the fair; for on the previous evening in the House of Commons Mr. Asquith had moved a resolution calling for the early introduction of a Bill on these lines. The whole debate which followed had dealt, not exclusively, but very nearly so, with the question of the enfranchisement of women. Mr. Asquith had again emphasized his conversion, had compared himself with Stesichorus, who had been smitten with blindness for insulting Helen of Troy, adding, "Some of my friends may think that, like him, my eyes, which for years in this matter have been clouded by fallacies and sealed by illusions, at last have been opened to the truth." In the debate which followed every leader of every party, Conservative, Liberal, Labour, and Irish Nationalist, supported the enfranchisement of women, thus foreshadowing the Agreed Bill for which the N.U.W.S.S. had asked in the previous May. Mr. Lloyd George, the new Prime Minister, took an important part in the debate, speaking with all his accustomed vigour and fervour on our side. The opposition was almost non-existent, and Mr. Asquith's motion was agreed to by 341 votes to 62. The practical unanimity of the House was reflected by a similar unanimity in the Press (the three _Posts_, however, see p. 79, still holding the antisuffrage fort). The general tone was well expressed in the _Daily Telegraph_, which said:

"The conference decided by a majority in favour of the principle of women's suffrage. The work of women during the war, the new position to which they are called in the whole industrial life of the country, are considerations which have effected a sweeping change in general opinion on this great matter; and it is by this time fairly plain that a measure of women's suffrage must be included in any reform legislation which is seriously meant."

It will therefore be easily understood that our deputation was of a very cheerful and congratulatory character on both sides. We were, however, able to make clear certain points on which doubts had been expressed. We explained that the support of the suffrage societies was dependent on our enfranchisement being made an integral part of the Bill from the first; we were determined not to sanction its being introduced by amendment. Mr. Lloyd George told us he had already instructed the parliamentary draughtsman to draw the Bill on the lines we wished. He also explained that the Bill was not to be a Government Bill, but a House of Commons Bill; it would be introduced and guided throughout its passage in the House by a member of the Government, and would be pushed through by Government machinery, but Members would be free to vote as they pleased in both Houses on the women's clauses. We spoke against the high age limit for women, and said if the Government found it possible to modify this, or otherwise to improve upon the recommendations of the Speaker's conference in a democratic direction, we should be gratified; but, at the same time, our chief concern was for the safety of the whole scheme. We emphasized this, showing how greatly we preferred an imperfect Bill which could pass to the most perfect measure in the world which could not. The Prime Minister smilingly signified his assent to these views. We desired only to press for such improvements as were consistent with the safety of the whole Bill.

As the debates went on, and the House of Commons majority for women's suffrage became more and more overwhelming—the Second Reading being carried by 329 votes to 40, and the majorities in Committee on Clause IV., the women's clause, 385 to 55, or 7 to 1, with a majority within each party into which the House was divided; and, again, on the last trial of strength, 214 to 17—we felt the ground was sufficiently solid beneath our feet to attempt an improvement in the Bill. We therefore urged the Government to apply to women local government electors the same principle which had already been adopted by the House in regard to the parliamentary vote—namely, to admit to the register not only those women who were qualified in their own right, but also the wives of men similarly qualified. The great importance of this reform had been urged upon us by a member of our Executive Committee, now President of the N.U.S.E.C., Miss Eleanor Rathbone, herself a member of the City Council of Liverpool, and possessing very great experience of local government matters. The Labour Party gave the proposal its hearty support. But at first it was resisted by Sir George Cave, who had charge of the Reform Bill in the House of Commons. A joint deputation of women's societies and the Labour Party was organized on November 14th, but still Sir George Cave held out no hope that the Government would accept the amendment. There were vigorous protests in the House against this attitude; and our societies and other bodies bombarded the leader of the House and the Minister in charge of the Bill with letters and telegrams, urging the Government to accept for local government the principle they had already adopted for the parliamentary register. This had an excellent effect, and gave us a foretaste of the advantages of possessing, though at that time only in prospect, real political power. On November 20th the Government withdrew its opposition, and the amendment we had urged unsuccessfully on November 14th was agreed to without a division. The Report Stage of the Bill was concluded on December 7th, and the Third Reading was taken the same evening without a division.

The next stage of our battle had to be fought in the House of Lords, where we had far more formidable opponents than in the House of Commons. Lord Curzon, the leader of the House and chief representative of the Government, was also President of the National Society for Opposing Woman Suffrage. He was an eloquent and polished speaker, not beloved, but certainly powerful. We had tried to get a personal interview with him, but without success. His intended line in regard to the women's clause in the Reform Bill was absolutely unknown to us. He remained a member of the Government; perhaps, we reflected, it was to save his face and prevent his resignation that, as Mr. Lloyd George had told us, the Reform Bill was not a Government but a House of Commons Bill. Then there was Lord Bryce, from some points of view an even more formidable opponent, with all his prestige as an historian and a successful diplomatist. Lord Balfour of Burleigh was another redoubtable antagonist. We were told no man in the Upper House had more influence upon the predominant party in it. Then there was a group of well-known peers, representing both political parties, who were certain to oppose any sort of enfranchisement of women—Lord Loreburn, Lord Finlay, Lord Halsbury (these three were Lord Chancellors or ex-Lord Chancellors), Lord Weardale, Lord Lansdowne, and Lord Chaplin. But we had powerful friends, too, among whom should be mentioned the two Archbishops, the Bishop of London, Lord Selborne, Lord Lytton, Lord Burnham, Lord Milner, Lord Grey, Lord Haldane, and Lord Courtney. The Second Reading of the Bill went through without a division in the House of Lords on December 17th, but not without very hostile speeches from Lord Bryce and the aged Lord Halsbury, who carried his ninety-three years very vigorously. On comparing the two groups, our friends and our opponents, in the House of Lords we were cheered to see that our friends carried away the palm for youth. In so aged an assembly as the House of Lords this was a distinct advantage: very few peers are young enough to run the risk of rashness. The real fight in the Lords began when committee stage was reached, on January 8th, 1918. As a preliminary step the antisuffragists moved the elimination from the Bill of all clauses which had not been unanimously recommended by the Speaker's conference. This was aimed at Clause IV., which enfranchised women, but was opposed by the Government and withdrawn. Then came the more direct attack, the deletion of the parliamentary franchise from Clause IV. This gave rise to a full-dress debate, lasting three days. On the second of these—January 10th—we received, and looked upon it as a good omen, the joyful news of the passage through the American House of Representatives of the Federal Amendment on Women's Suffrage with the necessary two-thirds majority. The House of Lords was crowded, and excitement and expectation were very keen on both sides. On the suffrage side the speech of Lord Selborne was particularly memorable, first-rate in manner, matter, and method. It produced a deep impression. In the small space allotted to ladies other than peeresses on the floor of the House suffragists and antisuffragists were penned up together, and every shaft from either side told with profound effect. Before we were conducted to our seats in the House of Lords, Mrs. Humphry Ward had asked me, in the event of the suffrage clause being carried, if I would support her in trying to get it submitted to a referendum. Of course my reply was in the negative. I told her that, so far as my experience went, the referendum was one of those instruments of government which was most respected where it was least known, and that I agreed with the Prime Minister in regarding it as an expensive method of denying justice; and I asked her why she had not used her influence to get the referendum considered by the Speaker's conference. Having missed that opportunity, I thought there was little or no chance of raising the question at this, almost the last, stage of the Bill.

As the debate went on the suffragists became more and more confident. Our whip had been sent out signed by Lord Aberconway and Earl Grey. The first had been a suffragist from his youth up, the son of one of our oldest and stanchest friends, Mrs. Priscilla McLaren, sister of John Bright. The second was the great-grandson of the Earl Grey who had carried the first great Reform Bill in 1832.

At last Lord Curzon rose to close the debate. The story went the round in suffrage circles that when this moment was reached a group of suffrage women who were waiting for news in one of the committee rooms of the House of Lords saw the door open and a policeman's head put in. He said: "Lord Curzon is up, ladies. But 'e wont do you ladies no 'arm."

Lord Curzon opened his remarks with what may be best described as the standardized antisuffrage speech: the pattern and method were familiar to all of us. His mistrust and apprehension were as great as they had ever been, and were expressed in his usual language. Then came a slight pause, and Lord Curzon said:

"Now, my Lords, I ask you to contemplate what may happen if, over this matter, we come into collision with the House of Commons.... Your Lordships may vote as you please. You can cut this clause out of the Bill. You have a perfect right to do so. But if you think that by killing the clause you can also save the Bill, I believe you to be mistaken. Nothing, to my mind, is more certain ... than that, if your Lordships cut this clause out of the Bill, as you may perhaps be going to do, the House of Commons will return the Bill to you with the clause reinserted. Will you be prepared to put it back? Will you be content, if you eliminate the clause, with this vigorous protest you have made, and will you then be prepared to give way? Or, if you do not give way, are you prepared to embark upon a conflict with a majority of 350 in the House of Commons, of whom nearly 150 belong to the party to which most of your Lordships also belong?"

Lord Curzon concluded by saying that he could not vote either way upon the amendment before the House, because he could not take upon himself the responsibility of "precipitating a conflict from which your Lordships would not emerge with credit."

The effect of this speech was intensely dramatic. The antisuffragists were white with rage; the suffragists were flushed by the certainty of victory. To Lord Aberconway, who was standing at the bar quite near me, I said, "What will our majority be?" He replied, "Quite thirty." The division which followed showed that it was rather more than double this number, for the figures were: For the clause, 134; against it, 71. Both Archbishops and the other twelve Bishops present voted for the clause. Only twelve antisuffrage peers followed Lord Curzon's example and abstained from voting. If Lord Curzon and his twelve followers had voted against the clause, it would still have been carried by a substantial majority.

The Royal Assent was given to the Bill on February 6th, 1918.

Thus ended our parliamentary struggle, which had lasted since John Stuart Mill moved a women's suffrage amendment to the Reform Bill of 1867. The real source of our victory lay in the enormous majorities by which the suffrage clauses had been carried in the House of Commons, and to the fact that every political party into which that House was divided showed a majority for the principle of women's suffrage. People used to talk about our fifty years' struggle as fifty years in the wilderness, and offer their sympathy upon the length of time we had had to work for our cause. But there was no call for commiseration. We had had a joyful and happy time, marked by victory in some phase or other of our movement all along. We had won municipal suffrage and all local government suffrages. Municipal offices had been opened. Women had been elected to be mayors in important boroughs. The education of girls had been enormously improved; the Universities had been opened; the medical profession had admitted women to its ranks; nearly all the learned societies had followed suit. Women were no longer treated either socially or legally as if they were helpless children—"milk-white lambs, bleating for man's protection," as one of our poets had called them; a fair share of the responsibilities of capable citizenship was within their reach. To those who were heard to groan from time to time over the fifty years it took us to win household suffrage for women we could justly reply that the time we had taken to win household suffrage for women had been just two years less than the time men had taken to cover the same ground. For, taking 1832 as their starting-point with the Reform Bill of that year, it had occupied them fifty-two years before they won household suffrage for themselves, and they started with the advantage of about one million of voters already in existence, and with the further and much greater advantage of the tradition of seven hundred years of freedom and self-government. We had no such advantages; we had not one vote between us; "we could not get the vote because we had not got the franchise," as _Punch_ put it, and in lieu of the tradition of centuries of freedom behind us, we had the exactly opposite tradition of unbroken subjection and subordination. The best men and women in each succeeding generation helped and encouraged our movement from the days of Mary Wollstonecraft onwards. We were winning all the time, and never had any cause for despondency.

Our movement goes on all the more surely and rapidly now that we have what all men have found essential to freedom, the power to control the Government and by our vote help to decide by what type of men the country shall be governed.

Very little now remains to be said. The N.U.W.S.S. has changed its name and extended its objects as described in the following chapter. I am in hearty sympathy with this development, but I felt that my years entitled me in the future to a less strenuous existence. I therefore resigned my presidency of the union, and it was a matter of sincere satisfaction to me that my old friend and colleague, Miss Eleanor Rathbone, was elected as my successor.