And it did not appear that any other woman suffragist
could discern any kind of immorality in it. The
worst thing they could find to say was that it perhaps
was a little gauche to confess to making a
deliberately false statement on a public question when
it was for the moment particularly desirable that
woman should show up to best advantage before the
eyes of man.
We may now for a moment put aside the question of
woman’s public morality and consider a question
which is inextricably mixed up with the question of
the admission of woman to the suffrage. This is
the mental attitude and the programme of the female
legislative reformer.
MENTAL OUTLOOK AND PROGRAMME OF THE FEMALE LEGISLATIVE REFORMER
The suffragist woman, when she is the kind of woman
who piques herself upon her ethical impulses, will,
even when she is intellectually very poorly equipped,
and there is no imprint of altruism upon her life,
assure you that nothing except the moral influence
of woman, exerted through the legislation, which her
practical mind would be capable of initiating, will
ever avail to abate existing social evils, and to
effect the moral redemption of the world.
It will not be amiss first to try to introduce a little
clearness and order into our ideas upon those formidably
difficult problems which the female legislative reformer
desires to attack, and then to consider how a rational
reforming mind would go to work in the matter of proposing
legislation for these.
First would come those evils which result from
individuals seeking advantage to themselves by the
direct infliction of injury upon others. Violations
of the criminal law and the various forms of sweating
and fleecing one’s fellow-men come under this
category.
Then would come the evils which arise out of
purveying physiological and psychological refreshments
and excitements, which are, according as they are
indulged in temperately or intemperately, grateful
and innocuous, or sources of disaster and ruin.
The evils which are associated with the drink traffic
and the betting industry are typical examples.
Finally, there would come into consideration
the evils of death or physical suffering deliberately
inflicted by man upon man with a view to preventing
worse evils. The evil of war would come under
this category. In this same category might also
come the much lesser evil of punitive measures inflicted
upon criminals. And with this might be coupled
the evil of killing and inflicting physical suffering
upon animals for the advantage of man.
We may now consider how the rational legislative reformer
would in each case go to work.
He would not start with the assumption that it must
be possible by some alteration of the law to abolish
or conspicuously reduce any of the afore-mentioned
evils; nor yet with the assumption that, if a particular
alteration of the law would avail to bring about this
result, that alteration ought necessarily to be made.
He would recognise that many things which are theoretically
desirable are unattainable; and that many legislative
measures which could perfectly well be enforced would
be barred by the fact that they would entail deplorable
unintended consequences.
