to stock a Parliament. There is the National Union party, which will take any instalment of Women's Suffrage—even a Bill for conferring the vote upon one woman, as it was put the other day—on the ground that as soon as the door has been opened ever so little, the pressure upon it must force it all the way in a very short time. But then there is the Adult Suffrage party, which denounces this state of mind as a mere shirking of the logical basis of the whole demand, and foresees that the satisfaction of it would give the wealthy and comfortable a preponderance in the State which would defer all social reform and all further extension of the franchise indefinitely.
The opponents of Women's Suffrage—the tooth-and-nail, "woman is woman" opponents—are not the enemy to be feared. They have not a leg to stand on, and they know it. The enemy is within. The enemy is the disorganisation that comes of divided counsels; and that enemy will be fatal unless it can be speedily crushed. There is plenty of the enthusiasm which will face personal inconvenience and suffering; what is wanted is more of the spirit which can subordinate personal enthusiasms to an understanding of the conditions of success. It was said of William the Third by his great opponent, that "he bore himself in all things like an old general, except that he exposed himself like a young soldier." We have got to prove that enthusiasm is not incompatible with generalship, or the fortresses of prejudice will not go down before our arms.
