Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/847

THE INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE 83! Now the outside world wants to know how that Parliament can consistently say that other British women are not even worthy to cast a vote to elect that body. There is still another reason why the world is watching England. The British Colonies have enfran- chised women; how is the Home Government to explain the phe- nomenon of women, enfranchised in Australia, then disfranchised in England; enfranchised in New Zealand and disfranchised when they return to the mother country? She called attention to the forming of the Anti-Suffrage Asso- ciation by women in Great Britain and said : "They are sending in a petition to Parliament. It is well known that people by nature are opposed to new things; before education people are anti- suffragists. If a petition opposed to woman suffrage should be presented to the Hottentots, the Afghanistans, the tribes of Thibet or to the interior of Turkey, every individual would sign it and the longest petition 'opposed to the further extension of rights to women' yet known could be secured there. A petition for suffrage, however, carries a very different meaning; every name represents a convert, a victory, an education of the under- standing, an answer to an appeal for justice. A woman suffrage petition is a gain ; an anti-suffrage petition merely shows how much more must be gained. One is positive, the other negative. Wait a little and you will find that England, and other countries as well, will perceive the real truth, that the anti-suffrage women- are the most inconsistent products of all the ages." The flaying did not stop here but Mrs. Catt called attention to the fact that this convention celebrated the birthday of Mary Wollstonecraft, referred to the position of women in her time and said : There, have hern women who have crucified their very souls and the lineal ancestors of the present-day "antiV with withering seorn and criticism tf>. Yet v nn ) C () f those modern anti- college degree, an opportunity which other women won for them in the face of universal ridicule; they own which is theirs today as th .if laws which other n labored for a quarter of a century to secure; they stand upon public platforms !. t. .r women w;i- won for them by other wnin-n amid the jeers of howling niohs ; the the r: ition which ihli>hed a- the result of many a <1 many a brave endeavor when the world condemned it as a threat against all moral order. They accept with