Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/286

 of our parliamentary system is that a minority of electors appoint a majority of members of Parliament, and the majority of electors appoint their minority to be steadily outvoted and beaten; and all the while statesmen and journalists vie with one another in national brag, and tell the deluded people that they are blessed above all other peoples in their institutions and in their laws. And the story is circulated so persistently that at last, as people are ultimately convinced by a perpetual advertisement, they think that it is even so."

During the autumn of 1874, chiefly through the exertions of the admiral, was formed the Electoral Reform Association. It had for its chief object the equalization of constituencies, and started with the promise of a most useful career. It made shipwreck, however, unfortunately, over the question of woman suffrage, against which Admiral Maxse set his face with, I think, most injudicious vigor. It is a problem which may be safely left for such goody-goody sentimental people to solve, in their own fashion, as we see voting for incompetent women in preference to competent men in school-board elections. I have read with some curiosity the admiral's "Woman Suffrage, the Counterfeit and the True: Reasons for opposing Both." and can only feel astonishment that he should have been at so much pains to argue so stoutly either on the one side or the other. Female suffrage would have done very well if only the admiral had had the good sense to let it alone. It is a topic which females and feminine men should be permitted wholly to monopolize. It will please them, and do no one much injury.

As a member of the executive council of the Land-