this question. They come on the soft side of Radicals and coax them by appeals to abstract rights, and having conquered here, they sidle up to the Conservative with a whisper about the "rights of property," and the additional representation of property obtained by their measure. And so the Radical gets his bone, says that he likes it, and brandishes it aloft with pride, declaring that he will increase the power of oppression for the sake of eternal justice. And the Conservative appreciates the argument, and perceives his solid plum. The opportunity of class legislation under the circumstance of Radical connivance is too rare to be missed. Mr. Forsyth's Bill is now obtaining considerable support among the Conservatives, and it is quite possible that it may soon become law, when an additional means will be afforded of class oppression.
I have not time this evening to discuss the question of Woman Suffrage at length, and shall confine myself to a very few remarks. I am opposed to it on the ground of principle and policy. To give women the right of imposing laws—or of assisting to impose laws—on men, maintained by State power, is to invert a Natural Law. The Natural Law is this:—that women are, like minors, though in a superior degree, dependent for protection on men[1]. Why do not women concede the right of voting to minors?— solely and properly on the ground of expediency—yet they protest against the doctrine of expediency being applied in their, case.
Women who are dissatisfied with their dependence on men should get up a meeting against Nature, and adopt a resolution impeaching the system of creation. It is true that women have as men have—many wrongs, but their remedy lies not in their political hostility to men, but in their emancipation from superstition and in the exercise of their natural influence. We must not regard the few radical women who come forward in this movement as the genuine representatives of their sex. They have—I say it without disrespect—masculine minds. They misrepresent women when they ask for votes. The overwhelming majority of women in this country are indifferent to or are opposed to Woman Suffrage; and
- ↑ The advocates of Woman Suffrage are always arguing from the exception. They compare George Eliot or Harriet Martineau with the average male elector, and triumphantly point to the contrast; and because I have said that women are physically dependent on men, Sir Robert Anstrother, M.P., undertakes to produce a Scotch fish woman who would walk me "to death in five minutes." I should have thought it was unnecessary to say that my argument throughout applies to women collectively.
