Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/87

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LETTER V

Summary of argument

My dear C,

My reasoning throughout the whole of these letters has almost of necessity involved a certain amount of repetition. The pains with which I have elaborated particular points may have obscured the general drift of my argument. Allow me, then, in this last letter, to come back to the question whence we started: Will England derive benefit from the introduction of woman suffrage? When the matter has been calmly examined, without declamation or rhetoric, the answer comes out clearly enough. That this is so will be apparent if I broadly summarize the whole case, as it stands before my mind, against granting Parliamentary votes to English women.

There exist, on the one hand, some plausible or even strong arguments for conceding to women a share in sovereign power. The

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