Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/979

886 stone's distinct declaration that he would abandon the bill if the amendment were passed. On June 12 Lord John Manners resumed the debate. Hes aid:

That although this proposal had never been of a party character, it had always been a political question. There was no question connected with the franchise which had been more thoroughly discussed, threshed and sifted. Guided by every consideration of justice and fairness, of equity, of analogy and experience, he should give it his cordial and unhesitating support.

The next speech of importance was Mr. Stansfeld's. He maintained that the acceptance of the clause by the government would have strengthened rather than weakened the bill, and that its insertion certainly would not have rendered the bill less palatable to the House of Lords:

The principle of this bill is household suffrage. Household suffrage is one of two things—it is either put as a rough test of capable citizenship, or else it means what I will call the family vote. The women to be enfranchised under this clause would be first of all women of property, intelligence and education, having a status in the country; secondly a large class of women of exceptional competency, because having lost the services and support of men who should be the bread-winners and the heads of families, they are obliged to step into their shoes and to take upon themselves the burdens and responsibilities which had previously devolved upon men, and because they have done this with success. I decline either by word or deed to make the admission that these women are less capable citizens than the 2,000,000 whom the right honorable gentleman proposes to enfranchise by this bill. Well, then, let it be the family vote—that is to say, exceptions apart, let the basis of our constitution be that the family, represented by its head, should be the unit of the State. Now that is the idea which recommends and has always recommended itself to my mind. But on what principle, or with what regard to the permanence and stability of that principle, can you exclude the head of the family and give that family no voice, because the head happens to be a woman? If this clause be excluded from the measure, as it will be, this will not be a bill of one principle, but of two principles. It will not be a bill containing only the principle of household suffrage interpreted as the family vote, but one founded on these two principles—first, a male householding vote; and, secondly, the exclusion of the head of the household when the head is a woman. That is a permanent principle of exclusion, and therefore the bill with this clause left out is a declaration for ever against the political emancipation of women.

After some speeches against the motion Colonel King-Harman said:

In the old state of the franchise it was not so much a matter of importance to women whether they possessed votes or not, but now that this