Year: 1877




recent number of the London Times
gives the greater part of one of its
ample pages to the report of warm
Parliamentary debate on Mr.. Jacob
Bright's bill for removing the disabilities of
women. The purpose of the bill was to
confer the elective franchise on the gentler
sex. The Parliamentary discussion was
lively and amusing; but careful perusal
of all that was said by the speakers on both
sides and of the vigorous leading arti-
Gle in the Times on the debate adds
nothing to what we already knew on
this interesting subject. The Parliamen.
tary discussion and the Times forcible edi-
torial merely present, in somewhat better
language, the arguments pro and con, with
which we have long been familiar on this
side of the Atlantic The only new point
we have been able to discover is the playful
one presented by The O'Donoghue "Hs
would ask his honorable friend, the member
from Manchester, why man should reserve
to himself the sole right of putting ques-
ton on which the happiness of both sexes
largely depended? Laughter) Why
should not womsn also be permitted to pop
the question instead Of waiting till she was
asked? The conventional restraint which
prevented her from doing this and COM
PEELED her to endure suspense which often,
no doubt was most painful was the only
disability under which, 30 far as he knew.
she was laboring, and if the honorable
member for Manchester thought fit to in
In N hill a. 70 o<,iko fo,s
its removal, he (The O'Donoghue) would be
prepared to give him his most ardent sup
port. Naughter)" There were several
sportive sallics of this kind, though not so
original, in the course of the debate, but
the advantage of serious argument was on
the side of the opponents Of Mr.. Bright's
bill.


The Times, which approached the ques-
tion on its serious side, was very strong and
energetic against the right Of women to vote.
The coloring of its article was borrowed
from the great war which absorbs public at-
tention. Its substance was that the effect
i've control of political questions depends
upon those who can fight. All questions Of
foreign politics must be ultimately decided
Dy the SWORD III tne partleS cannon agree,
and even domestic questions require the in
tervention of force whenever they are carried
to the point of insurrection against the gov
ernment. The most extreme advocates Of
the rights of woman have never maintained
that she should march With armies and en-
counter the hardships Of military life. But
as she cannot fight there is no sense in
clothing her with the power to decide
questions that may lead to a conflict
of arms in which she cannot particle
pate. Even the most ordinary law on
purely domestic question presupposes o
power to enforce it, and the compelling
power is the military force Of the govern
ment. Laws amount to nothing without
physical power to put down resistance, and
this armed physical power does not reside
in the gentler sex. Government is not
rose-water arrangement; it is not mere
moral suasion; it is idle and ridiculous
without physical force behind it. The Lon.
don Times accordingly argues that woman
suffrage is absurd, because mere political
regulation is an empty farce without enforc-
ing soldiers behind it, and only the male
sex is capable of serving as soldiers.