Newcastle in 1905, on the eve of the General Election, in favour of the removal of sex disabilities "in the matters of the Parliamentary Suffrage and of election to local bodies."
We have traced the movement through the more academic stage to the arena of party politicians, but in 1902 the third and most important stage was ushered in by the presentation of petitions, with more than 37,000 signatures, from women textile workers in Yorkshire and Cheshire. It is now realised that it is upon the self- and often family-supporting women workers that the fate of the movement depends. The energy and enthusiasm of the toilers is growing keener every year.
Utterances, inspired or otherwise, one hears ever and again from high quarters foreshadowing another great Reform Bill on the lines of "Manhood" Suffrage. With working women standing in solid phalanx, the word "adult" must eventually be substituted for "manhood" in any new measure for further enfranchisement
But before that ultimate goal is reached women must attain the same measure of enfranchisement as men now enjoy. Poor and rich, employer and employed, leisured and working classes, stand together in the category of political outcasts. They realise what some wise men fail to comprehend, that to enfranchise even a fraction as a first instalment is to burst the sex barrier which has so long held us in thrall; while to postpone our question until "Manhood" Suffrage has been solved would be to erect a well-nigh unscaleable wall of sex ascendancy.
