THE LEADERS OF THE FOUR PARTIES ON THE SUFFRAGE QUESTION.
THE RT. HON. SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, M.P.
"… The more I come to close quarters with the social questions which affect the great mass of the people of this country, the more am I driven to the belief that women ought to have the power of expressing their opinions on those subjects and help in their solution."
THE RT. HON. A. J. BALFOUR, M.P.
"We have been told that to encourage women to take an active part in politics is degrading to the sex, and that received the assent of an hon. friend of mine below the gangway. It has received the assent of almost every speaker to-day. I should think myself grossly inconsistent and most ungrateful if I supported that argument in this House, for I have myself taken the chair at Primrose League Meetings, and urged to the best of my ability the women of this country to take a share in politics, and to do their best in their various localities to support the principles which I believe to be sound in the interests of the country. After that, to come down to the House, and say I have asked these women to do that which degrades them, appears to me to be most absurd."
MR. JOHN REDMOND, M.P.
"Is it not absurd to say that a woman in this country who may be left a widow, who may have the training of her children, the regulating of their education, the forming of their character, is to have no voice whatever in the laws to govern the state of the future citizens of which she has had the training?"
MR. J. KEIR HARDIE, M.P.
"I know of no argument in support of the grant of the franchise to men which does not equally apply to giving the franchise to women."
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