Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/74

This protest must command attention; it reveals an exceptional state of opinion which must, so long as it exists, tell strongly against the introduction of woman suffrage into Great Britain. The position of these political protestants is in no way absurd. It is best expressed in the words of a woman: 'The women whose profound, though often unspoken, reluctance to the proposed addition to their duties and responsibilities I am endeavouring to interpret, do not regard the question as mainly referring to the value, or the best distribution, of a particular bit of political machinery; but as involving that of the right and fair division of labour between the sexes. We regard the suffrage not as conferring a necessarily advantageous position, but rather as the symbol, and to some extent the instrument, of a public participation in political functions; not as a prize to be coveted, but as the token of a task which should not be indiscriminately imposed—a task not to be lightly undertaken, or discharged without encountering both toil and opposition. We think that justice and fairness consist, not in ignoring actual differences,