maintain that, on the contrary, only now had you proved you understood how to make British politics. And very wonderfully and rapidly you have made them. A Women's Suffrage debate is far from novel in Parliament: it has often enough held its languid course, feebly rippled by the witticisms of Mr. Labouchere. But when has a Women's Suffrage debate proceeded in a Parliament guarded by policemen? Why, we read that when the police saw half a dozen girls come out of an A.B.C. shop, they began to think of sending for reinforcements! When has a Women's Suffrage debate had the ear of Europe—nay, of the world? The Bill has been talked out. And Woman is called the talking sex. The Bill has been talked out! Very well, we are here to talk it in again. They may talk it out, but your processions can walk it in. They may arrest you, but they cannot arrest your movement.
You should be feeling victorious, I say, not defeated. Patience! Your movement dates precisely from the day on which the Times said you had proved your unfitness for politics. The B.P. period—the Before Prison period—doesn't count. And the A. P. period—the After Prison period—is yet young. John Bull must have time for digestion. But I cannot agree with the Westminster "Wobbler" as to the form this digestion must take—that Women's Suffrage must be first made a clear and definite issue at a General Election. How can it be? Both parties are for it. How can either obtain a clear, definite and exclusive mandate from the country? Balfour and Campbell-Bannerman both declare that the measure is right and just. Woman between the Conservatives and the Liberals is like the donkey who starves between two bundles of straw.
But she must cease being a donkey. She must learn to unite. She is divided against herself. (Cries of "No.") Yes; look at Mrs. Humphry Ward's letter in to-day's Times.
