Part 16 (1/2)

Who among us has the right to cast the first stone?

WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE FOR WOMEN

”Give her of the fruits of her lands and let her own words praise her in the gates.”

--PROV., Chap 31.

CHAPTER XIII

WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE FOR WOMEN

The war has done already, with us, such great things for women, so many of them so naturally accepted now, that it is almost difficult to get back in thought, and realize where we stood when it broke out.

General s.m.u.ts, in one of his speeches, said, ”Under stress of great difficulty practically everything breaks down ultimately, and the only things that survive are really the simple human feelings of loyalty and comrades.h.i.+p to your fellows, and patriotism, which can stand any strain and bear you through all difficulty and privation. We soldiers know the extraordinary value of these simple feelings, how far they go and what strain they can bear, and how, ultimately, they support the whole weight of civilization.”

In this war our men, in their dealings with us, have got down more and more to simple fundamental truths and facts--loyalty and comrades.h.i.+p, founded on our common patriotism. We have got nearer and nearer to the ideal so many of us long for, equal right to serve and help. The great fundamental establishment of political rights for women has come with us. When war broke out, women's suffrage was winning all the time a greater and greater ma.s.s of adherents, a majority of the House was pledged to vote for it and had been for years, the Trade Unions and Labour Party stood solid for it, but the motive to act seemed lacking.

War came, and every political party in our country laid aside political agitation. No party meetings have been held since August, 1914. Suffragists and anti-suffragists did the same. The great body of const.i.tutional suffragists kept their organization intact but used it for ”sustaining the vital energies of the nation.” Relief Work, Hospital Work and Supplies, Child Welfare, Comforts, Workrooms, help for professional women, work for Belgian refugees, work in canteens and huts, work for the Soldiers and Sailors Families' a.s.sociation, Schools for Mothers, Girls' Clubs--into everything the Suffrage societies fling themselves with ardour, zeal and ability. No women knew better how to organize, no women better how to educate and win help. They formed an admirable Women's Interests Committee, and looked after all women's interests excellently.

When the Government issued its first appeal for women volunteers for munitions and land, etc., it asked the Suffrage societies to circulate them and to help them to secure the needed labour from women.

As the war went on it became clearer and clearer that the men of the country saw more and more vividly why suffragists had asked for votes--and more and more were impressed with the value of their work.

At meetings to do propaganda for Government appeals, when women spoke on the needs of the country, men everywhere, although it had nothing to do with the appeal, and had never been mentioned, declared their conversion to Women's Suffrage in the War.

Women pointed out that they did not want Women's Suffrage as a reward--but as a simple right. They had not worked for a reward, but for their country, as any citizen would, but, in our country, the great converting power is practical proof of value and they had that overwhelmingly in our work. The Press came out practically solidly for Women's Suffrage. The work of women was praised in every paper and one declared, ”It cannot be tolerable that we should return to the old struggle about admitting them to the franchise.” Eminent Anti-Suffragists, inside and outside of the House of Commons, frankly admitted their conversion. Mr. Asquith, the old enemy of Women's Suffrage, said in a memorable speech: ”They presented to me not only a reasonable, but, I think, from their point of view, an unanswerable case.... They say that when the war comes to an end, and when the process of industrial reconstruction has to be set on foot, have not the women a special claim to be heard on the many questions which will arise directly affecting their interests, and possibly meaning for them large displacement of labour? I cannot think that the House will deny that, and, I say quite frankly, that I cannot deny that claim.”

It was clear the whole question of franchise would need to be gone into--the soldiers' vote was lost to him under our system when he was away, and the sailors' redistribution was long overdue, an election, as things were, would be absolutely unrepresentative. So after several attempts to deal with the problem in sections, a Committee was set up under the Speaker of the House of Commons to go into the whole question of Franchise reform and registration.

The Committee was composed of five Peers and twenty-seven members of the House of Commons, and started its work in October, 1916, and in its report, April, 1917, it recommended, by a majority, that a measure of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt should be given to women.

The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and the Consultative Committee, which had been formed in 1916 by the N.U.W.S.S., of representatives of all const.i.tutional societies, presented various memorials, notably an admirable memorandum of women's work and opinion in favour, prepared by the National Union for the Speakers' Conference during its sittings. After its recommendations while the bill was being drafted, Mrs. Henry Fawcett, LL.D., the President of the N.U.W.S.S., headed a deputation received by the Premier, Mr. Lloyd George, who has always been a supporter of Women's Suffrage. This was certainly one of the most representative and interesting deputations that ever went to Downing Street. It numbered over fifty and every woman in it represented a great section of industrial and war workers--Miss Mary MacArthur, the Trade Union Leader was there, and Miss Margaret Bondfield, Mrs. Flora Annie Steele, the auth.o.r.ess; Lady Forbes Robertson, for actresses; Miss Adelaide Anderson, our Chief Women Factory Inspector; Mrs. Oliver Strachey, Parliamentary Honourable Secretary of the National Union, whose work has been tireless and invaluable in the House; a woman munition worker, a woman conductor, a railway woman worker, a woman chemist, a woman from a bank, a clerk, a s.h.i.+pyard worker, a nurse, a V.A.D., an eminent woman Doctor, a peeress in Lady Cowdray, who has done so much for the British Women's Hospitals and so many other war objects, and women representatives of every calling in the nation at peace and war. Mrs.

Pankhurst, who has been very active in war work, was also present on the Premier's invitation, and Mrs. Fawcett brought a Welshwoman who made her plea in her own language, the Premier's own, too, and the one he loves to hear. In his reply, he a.s.sured them the bill would contain a measure of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt for women as drafted, and he was quite sure the House would carry it.

The recommendations of the Speakers' Conference were an agreed compromise, and the Representation of the People Bill, as it was called on its introduction, has gone through very much on the lines of the recommendations. It arranges for postal or proxy votes for the soldier, the sailor and the merchant seaman, it simplifies the qualifications for men, it retains the University vote for men and extends it to women, and it enfranchises women of thirty years of age on a residence qualification, and all wives of voters of the same age.

It disfranchises, for the time, the conscientious objector who will do no national service. The age at which our men vote is twenty-one. The higher age of the women was a compromise, which was accepted by all women's societies and by labour women, though it was not the terms they stood for--equality.

If we had it on the same terms as men, we should very greatly outnumber the men. There were over a million more women than men before the war and a new electorate greater than all the men's numbers brought in at once was not considered wise. To press for it would have wrecked our chances.

This measure enfranchises six million women, and about ten million men are now voters, so we have a very fair proportion.

The women's clause was carried, with only thirty-five dissentients and later only seventeen voted against it.

In this same bill, with practically no discussion, an amendment was carried enfranchising the wives of local government electors.

It is difficult to adequately express the confidence, the desire, and the willingness to co-operate, that there is now between our men and women.

We know, too, that the great woman's movement of our country, which has worked to this end for fifty years and numbered our greatest women among its adherents, has had much to do with the ability of our women to take the great part they have in this crisis. If women had not toiled and opened education and opportunities to women, and preached the necessity of full service, we could not have done it.