is maternal or adapted for housekeeping." The difference of their spheres, the ineradicable diversities imposed by sex, as of temperament, function, and even habits of thought these cannot be got over, though they imply no disparagement to either the man or the woman.

But we must, further, face squarely what is involved as consequential to female franchise. "The woman's vote carries with it the woman's seat." Capacity to sit in the Legislature practically means "capacity to fill every office in the State," executive and judicial. So says Mr Gladstone, and Mr Bryce tells us this contention is fully endorsed in the United States. "It is universally admitted that the gift of the suffrage must carry with it the right of obtaining any post in the service of the country for which votes are cast, up to and including the Presidency itself." Once or twice, he adds, women have been nominated as candidates for the Presidency. The present editress of 'The Humanitarian' (Mrs Martin) was, I believe, at one time a candidate for the Presidential Chair. As a case in point, we have only to turn to one of our own colonies. In New Zealand, some time back, women were admitted to the parliamentary franchise, with certain results to be noted presently. What has followed as the next step in the sex's claim? Why, that a resolution has been quite recently introduced into the Colonial Legislature praying that women should be allowed to sit in the House of Representatives-in other words, to be members of Parliament. This motion, it appears, was only lost in a House of 61 members by a majority of 9. Obviously, then, in this antipodal Arcadia of feminine emancipation,

woman, after driving in the suffrage wedge, has come within measurable distance of the legislator's seat. And now that goal seems to have been actually reached by another Australasian colony. For South Australia has not only conceded to its women electoral rights, but it has also made them eligible to sit in both Houses of Parliament, and to serve as Ministers of the Crown.

Here, then, we begin to see the strange and unprecedented possibilities opening out from female suffrage. It would be bad enough for the manhood of a country to feel itself outvoted by women, and to have what would literally be "skirt legislation" enforced upon it. But what should we think of the spectacle of women sitting side by side with men on the benches of St Stephen's, possibly under the presidency of a lady Speaker; or, it might be, bearing the seals of office as Secretary of State, Chancellor of the Exchequer, members of the Cabinet or of the Privy Council. They might clamour for a share in the prizes of the Bench, and indeed a bewigged male barrister pleading before a woman judge would not be much more startling than a Portia in silk gown haranguing a mixed jury of men and women!

These, let us remember, are not mere fanciful ideas. In America there are already female barristers, lawyers, doctors, ministers of the Gospel. In one State, Kansas, there is a city in which the mayor and many of the municipal council are, or were, women. In Wyoming women served as jurors; in the territory of Washington they had the same privilege, till the Legislature, recognising the grave evils of the practice, withdrew the qualification. In New Zealand we heard

lately of a lady mayor, who is also a justice of the peace. Example is contagious, and the danger would be, not that the great mass of the delightsome but impulsive sex would trouble themselves about filling civic or executive or judicial offices in place of the ordering of households, the cultivation of the graces, and the care of babies, but that a considerable leaven, made up of the restless, the unsatisfied, the ambitious among them, might by means of the female electorate clamber up into positions for which the sex, both by nature and prescription, is utterly unfit. For, say the "advanced" sisterhood, if a woman can fill the supreme position in a nation as queen or empress regnant, why should the sex be debarred from occupying other high State posts? They forget that such a plea defeats itself by forthwith suggesting the rejoinderShow us a country or an era in which the sovereign lady paramount has ever selected women as her responsible Cabinet Ministers. There lies the crux of the whole political woman's question.

Can it be, then, that those who give a qualified encouragement to the female suffragists have really pondered these bearings of the case Unquestionably many excellent people of moderate views have been drawn, by the mass of plausible literature disseminated on the subject, into a partial advocacy of woman suffrage, who, could they but descry even in the far distance the real terminus of the movement, would shrink from

it in dismay. Mr John Morley, addressing a Newcastle audience not long since, quoted an ancient maxim, "Look to the end." Will the wise among women, looking to the end, desire to give their sex the legislative vote?

I have already spoken of the danger of the party aspects of the question. It is doubtless a tremendous temptation to a political faction to bid for the support of a sectional clique by adopting its programme. When two rival hosts are encamped over against one another in about equal strength, each watching for its opponent's next move, every detached squadron of free-lances becomes valuable as a possible auxiliary who may decide the issue of the battle. Thus the role of each little new social and political "ism" which appears in the field has a position of vantage in bargaining with both sides, which it would never have attained by its intrinsic claims; and in this way it may succeed in bartering itself into a place under one or the other flag. We have had more than enough of that sort of object-lesson within recent years. There appears to be an idea current that the Conservative party are more favourable to woman suffrage than are their opponents; and the personal opinions of Lord Salisbury and Mr Arthur Balfour have been freely quoted by the pamphleteers of the movement as making for their side. We need not grudge to the female suffragists what capital they can make from the individual utterances of such eminent statesmen. But none the

Government Act, 1894.

less may we hope and believe that it will be long ere the responsible leaders of either party will face the consequences of giving the parliamentary franchise to women. The great Constitutional party is not wont to adopt into its programme revolutionary changes, such as this would be, in the government of the country, without an irresistible body of public opinion at its back, which it certainly in this case, as far as we can judge, would not have, nor is ever likely to have. Indeed, among the multifarious political topics discussed by candidates during the last general election, that of woman suffrage was almost entirely absent.

And, even to regard the question from the lower standpoint of political interest, it may be worth the while of those who anticipate a mainly Conservative vote from women, to note what has taken place in New Zealand. Says Mr Osler, writing to the 'Spectator' from the colony in December 1893: "The election of a fresh House of Representatives is just concluded, and the women have polled heavily. The great outcome of the election has been the total disappearance, one might say, of what is called the Tory party here. . . . Lord Salisbury would probably rue the day he ever advocated the vote for women, if he lived here. . . . One thing seems certain, and that is, that the female vote has been Radical to the backbone." 1 This view seems borne out by the testimony of Mr Reeves, Agent General to the colony, who is apparently in favour of female suffrage. Among the satisfactory results this gentleman enumerates as flowing from

1 'Spectator,' 10th February 1894.

the women's vote in New Zealand are specified "the unprecedented Liberal majority returned by the polls," and the women's acquiescence in "the national system of free, secular, and compulsory education." 2 Similarly, Mr Bakewell, a New Zealander, tells us (of the same election) that unfortunately a few Conservatives thought it would increase their party vote, and that the fanatical Prohibitionists worked for female suffrage with frantic energy. "The colony is now committed for three years to a course of extreme Radical legislation. The men elected are nearly all, with only one or two exceptions, of the most uneducated class in the community-either the lowest bourgeois or mere carpet-baggers. They have displaced men of education and experience. Such are the results of the female franchise! It is to be hoped that it will be a warning to English Conservatives. We shall probably for some years to come be a dreadful object-lesson to the rest of the British empire." 3 This, be it remembered, was written before the enfranchised New Zealand woman had had time to push her claim to stand for the parliamentary seat.

Then, again, how is the home, the Briton's castle, the centre of family life, likely to be affected by womanhood suffrage? At present the nation is made up of an aggregate of families, in which the husband and father takes the chief place. He is guardian and representative, in politics and public concerns, of the interests of each member of his household. This is a clear, rational, and work

able arrangement, which is based upon the history and experience of mankind. The wife and mother has an ample sphere of duty; the sons pass out into the world; the daughters either become merged in new family centres, or, if unmarried, can generally find in these days of emancipation enough scope for their energies. There are many fair trees in the world's garden whence womankind may cull and eat with zest and profit; but the fruit of the tree of the knowledge and pursuit of politics they had for the most part best leave alone. To add women to the parliamentary electorate would sooner or later be to turn every household into an agglomeration of political "items," divided, it might be, against itself -wife opposed to husband, daughter to parent, sister to brother. Where there is now, in the main, harmony and affection, would arise discussion and discord; the authority of the father would be impaired. In a word, this agitation to incorporate women in the electorate is nothing more nor less than a revolt against the male headship of the family.

Even if as is alleged to have been the case in the recent South Australian elections where women polled the feminine suffragists should vote pretty much on the same side as their male kinsfolk, this would only mean another form of the plural vote so abhorrent to the Radical mind. For,

say a man had three or four grownup and unmarried daughters all swayed by his own political views and polling accordingly, surely this would be a plurality of voting power for him with a vengeance!

Lastly, in this question of giving woman direct political power, we have to consider the effect, for

good or evil, upon herself. Let it not be thought that we who strenuously oppose this woman's movement take a depreciatory view of woman's character and intellectual powers. We yield to none in estimation of the manifold rich gifts wherewith nature has dowered her. Of one thing we may be sure, that the influence of women largely depends upon their femininity. Will the turning of them into political units increase their happiness or improve their character? Like a highly distilled perfume, sweet, delicate, subtle, the sway of woman properly exercised in her legitimate milieu is not less potent than it is far-reaching, searching to the "finest fibres of our nature." He is but half a man who does not revere and cherish the charms and virtues of a good and sympathetic woman. There is, indeed, no price too high with which to prize her. But her lamp is not the lamp of strength, nor of push, nor publicity, nor political prominence. Its radiance is of a softer kind, by the hearth and in the home; a light not to be hung abroad in the streets or forum, but to shine in the social circle and by the fireside. And the fear is "lest we should invite her unwittingly to trespass upon the delicacy, the purity, the refinement, the elevation of her own nature, which are the present sources of its power; "1 and thus to part with something the loss of which she would come bitterly to regret.

be inclined to endorse a quoted opinion of the United States "Independent" party, that "politics would do more harm to women than women could possibly do good to politics."

"Many reasons," says one of their own sex, "make the admission of women into the region of active politics a national danger and a national disgrace. As things are, by the mere fact of sex and its functions, women have already an overwhelming influence over men. . . . Every where their power is felt, everywhere their sex is predominant. . . . To add to this tremendous influence the direct power of a preponderating vote will be to shift the balance entirely to the feminine side."1 Most true; or, as Samuel Johnson, I think it was, otherwise expressed it, "Nature has given women much power, that the law very wisely gives them little."

SO

Are we, then, with our eyes open and in our sane senses, going to allow ourselves to drivel and drift into possible political subjugation by women? Surely this new gospel of legislative emasculation only needs to be properly realised to be rejected. The most, and with few exceptions the best, of the feminine sex themselves repudiate it. It is high time for plain, sober, manful men, and plain, sober, womanly women, to bestir themselves, and discountenance this mischievous heresy.

The direction of States and peoples along the track of the ages has hitherto been controlled by men. With the fiery wild horses of the modern Socialistic Demos champing the bit and straining at the traces of the imperial car, and already, as many of us think, on the downward grade, needing firmest of hands and strongest of brakes to prevent an upset, is it a time to call in woman to meddle with the driving? Let us be mindful of the fate of Phaethon, the rash and over-aspiring charioteer, who, when he had grasped the reins, grew affrighted, and neither knew how he was to handle them nor the way he was to go, nor yet, even should he steer right, how to keep the restive solar team in hand. And let us see to it in time, or, like that ill-fated son of Clymene, the woman we enfranchise is not unlikely to hurry us chaotically on through "pathless places," and finish by setting the world on fire!

T. P. W.