And if he is a philanthropical director of a great
business he does not, when a pathetic case of poverty
among his staff is brought to his notice, imperil
the fortunes of his undertaking by giving to his workmen
shares and a vote in the management.
Moreover, he would perhaps regard it as a little suspect
if a group of those who were claiming this as a right
came and told him that “it was very selfish
of him” not to grant their request.
Precious above rubies to the suffragist and every
other woman who wants to apply the screw to man is
that word selfish. It furnishes her with
the petitio principii that man is under an ethical
obligation to give anything she chooses to ask.
We come next—and this is the last of all
the arguments we have to consider—to the
argument that the suffrage ought to be given to woman
for instructional purposes.
Now it would be futile to attempt to deny that we
have ready to hand in the politics of the British
Empire—that Empire which is swept along
in “the too vast orb of her fate”—an
ideal political training-ground in which we might
put woman to school. The woman voter would there
be able to make any experiment she liked.
But one wonders why it has not been proposed to carry
woman’s instruction further, and for instructional
purposes to make of a woman let us say a judge, or
an ambassador, or a Prime Minister.
There would—if only it were legitimate
to sacrifice vital national interests—be
not a little to say in favour of such a course.
One might at any rate hope by these means once for
all to bring home to man the limitations of woman.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE CONCESSION OF THE PARLIAMENTARY
SUFFRAGE TO WOMAN
WOMAN’S DISABILITY IN THE MATTER OF PHYSICAL FORCE
International Position of State would be Imperilled
by Woman’s Suffrage—Internal Equilibrium
of State would be Imperilled.
The woman suffrage movement has now gone too far to
be disposed of by the overthrow of its arguments,
and by a mere indication of those which could be advanced
on the other side. The situation demands the
bringing forward of the case against woman’s
suffrage; and it must be the full and quite unexpurgated
case.
I shall endeavour to do this in the fewest possible
words, and to be more especially brief where I have
to pass again over ground which I have previously
traversed in dealing with the arguments of the suffragists.
I may begin with what is fundamental. It is an
axiom that we should in legislating guide ourselves
directly by considerations of utility and expediency.
For abstract principles—I have in view here
rights, justice, egalitarian equity, equality,
liberty, chivalry, logicality, and such like—are
not all of them guides to utility; and each of these
is, as we have seen, open to all manner of private
misinterpretation.
