Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/977

884 They desire earnestly to express their conviction that the course of allowing the question to be an open one, on which the government is prepared to accept the decision of the House, cannot possibly endanger or prejudice the Franchise bill. In connection with this your memorialists would press on your attention the fact that Mr. Woodall’s amendment is in the form of a new clause, and would not therefore come under discussion until the bill as it stands has passed through committee.

This request was refused. On June 9, such unexpected progress was made by the committee of the House of Commons with the Franchise bill that all the government clauses were carried. There were many amendments on the paper which took precedence of Mr. Woodall’s, but these were hastily gone through or withdrawn, and in the middle of the morning sitting of June 9, he rose and moved the introduction of his clause. Mr. Woodall’s speech was a masterpiece of earnest but temperate reasoning. He was fortunate enough to present an old and well-worn subject in new lights. He said that Mr. Gladstone had affirmed the principle of the measure to be to give every householder a vote, and it would now be his endeavor to pursuade parliament that women were capable citizens, who would meet all the conditions so clearly laid down by the prime minister. Against the charge of inopportunity in bringing the subject forward at this crisis, he reminded the House of Mr. Chamberlain’s words on a recent occasion, that it was always opportune to do right.

Mr. Gladstone said there were two questions to be considered. One of these was the question whether women were to be enfranchised, the other whether the enfranchisement should be effected by a clause introduced in committee on the present bill. The second question was that on which he was about to dwell. He deprecated the introduction of new matter into the bill. The cargo which the vessel carried was, in the opinion of the government, as large as she could carry safely. The proposal was a very large one. It did not seem unreasonable to believe that the number of persons in the three kingdoms to be enfranchised by the amendment would be little short of half a million. What was the position in which Mr. Woodall placed the government when he requested them to introduce a completely new subject on which men profoundly differed, and which, it was clear, should receive a full and dispassioned investigation? It was not now practicable to give that investigation. This was one of those questions which it would be intolerable to mix up with purely political and party debates. If there was a subject in the whole compass of human life and experience that was sacred beyond all other subjects it was the character and position of woman. Did his honorable friend ask him to admit that the question deserved the fullest consideration? He gave him that admission freely. Did he ask whether he (Mr. Gladstone) wished to bind the members of the Government or his colleagues in the cabinet with