Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/749

 WOMEN'S MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 733 sending an urgent demand to him to receive us in a deputation and to get his reply that he believed "no useful purpose would be served" by yielding to our request; but now, in November, 1911, he was inviting us to come and see him! Of course we went. His whole demeanor was much more conciliatory than it had ever been before. He acknowledged the strength and intensity of the demand of women for representation and ad- mitted that in opposing it he was in a minority both in his Cabinet and in his party; finally he added that, although his personal opinions on the subject prevented him from initiating and proposing the change which women were pressing for, he was prepared to bow to and acquiesce in the considered judgment of the House of Commons, and he stated that this course was quite in accordance with the best traditions of English public life. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, of which I was the mouthpiece, then put the following questions : 1 i ) Is it the intention of the Government that the Reform Bill shall go through all its stages in 1912? (2) Will the Bill be drafted in such a way as to admit of amendments introducing women on other terms than men? (3) Will the Government undertake not to oppose such amend- ments ? (4) Will the Government regard any amendment enfranchising women, which is carried, as an integral part of the Bill be defended by the Government in all its later stages? TQ all these questions, as they were put severally, Mr. Asquith replied "Yes, certainly." Mr. Lloyd George, who was present, was pressed by the depu- tation to speak but did so only very briefly. He was known as an opponent of the Conciliation Bill but had voted for it in I*/ 1 i because it was so drafted as to admit of free amendment. He made no secret of his conviction that the wider enfranchise- ment afforded by nincndim-nt of the Government measure would, is own expression, "torpedo" the Conciliation Bill. Al- most immediately after tin* deputation thus described lie sent the following message to the N.U.W.S.S.: "The Prime Minister's pronouncement as to the attitude to be adopted by the Govern- ment towards the question seems to make the carrying of a