wish to exercise their right will have full liberty to stop at home, knitting, or reading The Lady. No band of janissaries will drag them to the polling booth; and even if they were dragged there, the ballot is secret. There is always one last resource—they can spoil their voting papers.
The paradox is that a good many of these ladies are members of the Primrose League, a League which, for about a quarter of a century, has been petted and pampered by Prime Ministers, and whose members have been addressed as saviours of their country by all the leading lights of Toryism. These dissenting Dames tread the primrose path of politics, yet reck not their own rede. These defenders of domesticity are found on political platforms, they pack the Albert Hall, they interfere in elections more or less illegitimately—yet they shrink from the legitimate influence of a vote. They remind me of those ladies who get their alcohol surreptitiously from grocers' shops, but would be horrified to deal with a wine merchant. But the logic of facts cannot be evaded. The first lady who wore a primrose was the first "Suffragette." The Conservative Party, which has fostered and profited by all this feminine activity, is logically bound to crown it with the suffrage.
But there is another class of ladies, who, while desiring the suffrage, object to the present methods as unwomanly. They are unwomanly—and therein consists the martyrdom of the pioneers. They have to lower themselves to the manners of men; they have to be unwomanly in order to promote the cause of womanhood. They have to do the dirty work. Let those lady Suffragists who sit by their cosy firesides at least give them admiration and encouragement. Qut veut la fin veut les moyens. And undoubtedly the best means are not the most ladylike. Ladylike means are all very well if you are dealing with gentlemen; but you are dealing with politicians. Hitherto I have kept
