the passing of the new Reform Bill, Mr. Gladstone gave notice of his Bill for Home Rule for Ireland and the party feeling aroused was of such intensity that the Liberal party was cloven in twain. The Women's Suffrage movement was affected by the keen party strife, in which women were as deeply interested as men, and the question of their enfranchisement was no longer the only rallying point for their political activity. This period is marked by a rapid development of organisations amongst women for party purposes. In the Primrose League, which had been started in 1883, women had been assigned unprecedented recognition as co-operating with men on equal footing for political purposes. It does not promote special measures but lays down for its principle the Maintenance of Religion, of the Estates of the Realm and of the Imperial Ascendancy of the British Empire, thus indicating its Conservative tendency. The Women's Liberal Federation, founded in 1885 to promote liberal principles, endeavours to further special measures. The Women's Liberal Unionist Association founded in 1888 had for its principal object the defence of the legislative union between England and Ireland.
Thus women entered actively into the work of the three respective parties, and this re-acted in various ways on the Women's Suffrage propaganda. It might seem that this had a depressing effect, for the rigid neutrality in regard to party which always had characterised the National Societies for Women's Suffrage might easily seem dull and tame to the ardent party enthusiasts, and many of the Liberal women threw their energies by preference into the Women's Liberal Associations, but the old charge that women had no interest in politics, now received its complete quietus. It seems indeed a far cry from the manners of sixty years ago, when to talk politics to a woman was considered rude, to the manners of to-day when the Primrose League balances its 75,000 Knights with 63,000 Dames, besides associates innumerable, both men and 'women; and the Women's Liberal Federation with its 448 Associations has actively worked for candidates in a great number of counties in England.
1886. — The number of members returned after the General Election of 1885 who were understood to be favorably inclined
