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Votes for women?

by
25 January 2013

January 24th, 1913.

DURING the next few days the House of Commons will be occupied with the question, which arises incidentally in the Franchise Bill, whether six millions of women shall be placed upon the register without any attempt to ascertain the feeling of the existing electorate. Yesterday, Mr Aldred Lyttelton was to move the amendment standing in Sir Edward Grey's name, for the removal of the word "male", which now qualifies the word "person". The Cabinet being divided, the voting will be without the intervention of the Whips. Unionists and Radicals will go through the Lobbies hand in hand, those on the right to vote for the greatest revolution that has ever beenw seen in English politics, and those on the left to show that there is still some sanity left in the nation. If the Grey amendment can be defeated, we shall be rid of the Suffragist question during the life of this Parliament. If, on the contrary, it is carried, then the House will discuss several alternative proposals, one of which would admit every adult female to the franchise. The others are more limited in their scope. But even if artificial barriers could be set up for a while, they would in no long time be ruthlessly swept away. Those who approve of votes for women must accept the inevitable consequence, the enfranchisement of the sex as a whole and the transference of political power at the polls to women. In all this business Mr Asquith [the Prime Minister] stands out as a melancholy figure. He believes the proposal of votes for women to be a policy fraught with political disaster, but he is prepared to help in giving effect to it if the majority in Parliament so desires. The last thing which he appears ready to do is to resign office.

 

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