The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1917-04-02
On. of the Wars Great Changes.

Under its own form of gradual pro
cedure. the British House of Commons
has accepted woman suffrage. by large
majority. without yet enacting it, The
government and the House have accepted
it, as every speaker on the subject made
il plain. as a tribute to the devotion
of the women of the empire to the EN-
pire's cause in the war. From Mr.. AS
quth, the eX premier. former opponent
of woman suffrage, the strongest state
ment of this master-fact, this deciding
influence in the situation, came IN the
debate The women of England, Mr. As
auth said, had in this war worked out
their own salvation The war could not
he carried ON without them. Nor was
he content with putting the matter in
this negative way. Women had not
merely assisted according to some notion
of a more limited strength. Save in the
matter of the actual bearing of arms
in the field, there was no direction in
which women had not been as active as
men All this shows that the epoch of
fighting men abroad and weeping maids
at home" is over in the world. Women
arc found side by side with men in the
defense OF country. Therefore, since the
present is in England a time of recognize
ing the primal facts of life and of gov
eminent, woman logically takes her place
by the side OF man in the whole work of
sustaining the state.
This is the logic of the remarkable
change of the attitude OF the British
parliament and of what were once the
parties in British politics in regard to
this question, which was so bitter in
the petty days of party life. But where
are the British political parties now!
They have ceased to exist. They have
vanished like dream, a phantasm of
the night, at the coming of day. Listen
20 the words of Ronar Law. lately the
Unionist leader. in the debate last night.
He held the view, he said. that the
Conservative party, which was not
national party, might as well go ont of
business altogether; there was going to
be p new world after the war, and no par
" need attempt to exist which had not
the support of the bulk of the nation
which has saved the liberties of the en-
pirc. Politics at an end SO all agreed.
BY that, party politics is meant. The
greater politics thrive well in war. be-
cause war kills the smaller politics. In
the true definition of the word, the war
has been one of political advance. Rus
sia proves this. What more grandly po-
litical in the sense of the word mean
ing the real aud lasting welfare of the
whole body of citizens than the elector-
al reform, taken as whole. which the
British government and parliament have
now approved There is indeed mo poll
tics in sorely tried Britain now, in the
party Interpretation. There is only Just
the mighty and benefcent politics of
great cooperation of all for the good of
the human race.
The emancipation OF women in Britain,
coming as 1t must in answer to this de- |
termination of British craftsmanship. |
should teach American womanhood that |
1T has nothing to hope from opposition !
to the sacred purpose of our nation to |
defend its liberties and it's civilization at |
every cost, but, on the contrary. every. |
thing to gain from such work Of patri- |!
otto cooperation as that which Mr.. As |
quIth has SO warmly praised in England |
Boston Transcript.