a ban on one half of mankind, and refusing beforehand to make their faculties available, however distinguished they may be? And even if we could do without them, would it be consistent with justice to refuse to them their fair share of honour and distinction, or to deny to them the equal right of all human beings to choose their occupation (short of injury to others) according to their own preferences, at their own risk? Nor is the injustice confined to them. It is shared by those who are in a position to benefit by their services. To ordain that any kind of persons shall not be physicians, or shall not be advocates, or shall not be members of Parliament, is to injure not them only, but all who employ physicians, or advocates, or elect members of Parliament.”
It is a “consummation devoutly to be wished,” though not to be definitely asserted of the coming Socialist society, that Party politics will have become a thing of the past. That men and women will judge of a question or a candidate for office purely on its merits or on his or her qualifications for the office to which he or she seeks election. Certainly if anything
