New-York tribune., 1917-07-23
Chief of the Modern Anti.Suffragists

When the British House of Commons re-
| iected an amendment designed to exclude
women from the benefits Of the electoral
reform bill il was generally agreed that
! the opinion Of the country was reflected
with reasonable accuracy in the over
whelming vote of TO /. What may GER
tainly be concluded is that the resistance
of the alf-hearted objector has been final
" broken, that those who opposed the
change on principle simply because 1t was
g. change have learned in these years OF
war to accept change as condition not
necessarily followed by disaster, and, above
all, that the sort of opponent who was wont
to shrug his shoulders and say, IF the
women want the vote they will ultimately
get it." has at last come to see that they
do want it and that his passive resistance
4 is no longer either reasonable or expedient.
There remain a good many who are as
firmly convinced as ever that if women are
allowed to vote the most frightful calami-
ties must ensue. Mrs. Humphry Ward is
one of them, but it is significant that no
one pays much attention to her warnings
/ now. The large audience she used to COM
mand has dwindled, and waverers who
were once impressed by her solemn rea-
sonings on the shortcomings Of her sex are
a little tired of her and have been absorbed
by the majority on the opposite side.
The true spokesman Of the modern anti
suffragist party is Sir Almroth Wright.
His opposition was always too strong even
for Mrs. Ward, and it may be recalled
with what vehemence she repudiated his
doctrine and how shocked she was when in
her absence some unfortunate understrap-
per of her society reprinted and circulated
his notorious letter on "the unexpurgated
case against woman suffrage" She sup
pressed it as quickly as she could, but the
mischief was done, and Sir Almroth Wright
is to-day undoubtedly the soundest and
most logical leader Of the anti-suffragists,
whether Mrs. Ward and her associates like
him or not.
Sir Almroth Wright is a downright
Prussian in this matter, and there is no
place to-day for the tanner sort. His argu-
ments are all based on Physical Force and
the Law of God, and though he talks Of
democracy and insists that a chief objec-
ton to woman suffrage is that it is anti
democratic, it is obvious that he is merely
adapting his convictions TO the popular
drift of the day. Thus, while approving .he
limitations lately placed on the House Of
Lords, he approves them only because To-
day chat House is an institution which
has no longer any backing of physical
force" Physical force is everything, and
as long as a man can knock down woman
it is monstrous that woman should have
the presumption to demand hearing in
the affairs of the nation.
But, say his critics, at that rate Quakers
and many Of the clergy, nay, even the old
and infirm among men, should also be ex-
cluded from the electorate. Sir Almroth
Wright is thoroughly consistent on this
yoint. "The plain answer is" he writes,
Chat these also should undoubtedly be ex-
cluded," for behind the vote of every
Member of Parliament there ought to be
an aggregate OF 1orce, ana likewise Oe-
hind every Parliamentary electors vote the
physical force Of an individual"
This leaves the women high and dry;
but Sir Almroth Wright is not so bigoted
as to deny that they might possibly qualify
by some sort of equivalent service. To those
who plead that though they cannot fight
on an equal footing with men they could
60 something for the state of no less bene-
fit he answers sternly but with magnani-
mous candor: "There is only one national
service that could be imposed upon women
that would be even remotely commensurate
TO the service Of the fighting men. That
would be conscripton TO become the moth
ers Of sons for the state. can hear the