have found it difficult to avoid bringing in a Bill for Women's Suffrage.
Unfortunately, this great opportunity was allowed to pass, and for more than twenty years the movement has been under a cloud. Now, chiefly as the result of new methods of agitation—not only more dramatic but more political in their character than the old ones—Women's Suffrage stands in the direct line of political progress.
Because of our near approach to victory the strength of the opposition to be overcome is now more than ever apparent. I refer not to the action of certain misguided women who say that they object to the enfranchisement of their sex, but to that of male opponents who have hitherto regarded the Women's Suffrage movement as one which they could afford to ignore or even pretend to support. They now discover that this question is nearer settlement than they had thought possible. Hence, members of Parliament who object to Women's Suffrage are now sparing no pains to resist the reform.
Their opposition takes two forms. Some oppose Women's Suffrage avowedly because they object to the political equality of the sexes; others, less honest, argue against the immediate enfranchisement of women because they profess to believe that nothing short of complete womanhood suffrage ought to be granted. The Prime Minister adopts this attitude, without, however, giving the smallest indication of an intention to act upon his professed principles.
This, then, is the present position of affairs: Most
