Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/802

 786 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE ment were so afraid they would lose universal male suffrage that they gave up this amendment and the constitution was adopted without it. It did, however, make the valuable concession that it should be possible for the Parliament to grant the suffrage to women at any time without submitting it to the voters as part of the constitution. It also contained the remarkable provision that women should be eligible to election to the Parliament and all representative bodies, although they had not a scrap of suffrage. The exclusion of women was received with the disapproval of the country and in the election campaign of 1918 the demand of all the non-clerical parties was for woman suffrage. At the opening of Parliament H. P. Marchant, leader of the Constitu- tional Democrats, introduced a bill for the complete enfranchise- ment of women. Early in November, 1918, all Europe was alarmed by the revolution in Russia and The Netherlands was threatened. There was a demand for woman suffrage at once as a deterrent. The Government agreed and took up Mr. Marchant's bill but the danger passed and nothing was done. By February, 1919, the suffragists were obliged to hold another mass meeting and demonstration at The Hague and assure the Government that they would rouse the country. The Speaker then brought in the bill, which was discussed in April, and on May 9 universal suffrage for women on the same terms as possessed by men was accepted by a vote of 64 to 10 by the Second Chamber. The following July it passed the First Chamber with five dissenting votes and was signed by the Queen on September 8. In 1918 a woman had been elected to the Second Chamber and in 1920 one was elected to the First Chamber, and there were 36 on County Councils and 88 on Municipal councils, chosen by men before women had yet voted. BELGIUM. On November 23, 1918, five days after the armistice which ended the World War the National Federation for Woman Suffrage in Belgium resumed its activities with an open letter to the Labor Party, referring to their manifesto for universal suf- frage and reminding them that this included women. A little later it addressed an appeal to the newly established Government