Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/872

 856 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE At the time of the founding of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance there was nothing even approaching a feminist movement in Hungary, yet the recent Reform Bill which has just passed the two Houses includes a long and thorough explanation of the use- fulness and need of woman suffrage and apologies on the part of the Government for not being able (owing to the present precarious political situation) to grant it. The marked inclination of the Gov- ernment in favor of woman suffrage and the discussion which took place in the House afterwards, together with the fact that an amend- ment to include woman suffrage received more votes than any other moved, has given the whole question such an importance that it is no longer a matter of discussion as to whether our claims are justi- fied or not, but only when shall they be granted ? The work accomplished by us since the Stockholm Congress has been in the main, as before, educational ; propaganda by meetings, lectures at all seasons and in all places ; the distribution of an im- mense quantity of leaflets and other printed matter and lectures by famous foreign suffragists. The most valuable and effective part of our work was that we took advantage of the meetings arranged by the coalition opposition parties, which include the Social Demo- cratic and the Bourgeois-Radicals. They held hundreds in all parts of Hungary, many attended by six or eight thousand people, and in one in Budapest gathered an audience of 15,000. We tried to get a speaker of ours on every program. In spite of the militant opposition of the Social Democratic party and Radical leaders, we succeeded nearly every time in getting the floor, where we presented amendments to their resolutions, which, when the chairman was honest enough to put them to be voted on, were always enthusias- tically carried. . . . About sixty societies for various purposes have declared their position by taking part officially in several of our public demonstrations. A list was given of distinguished men who had become con- verted to woman suffrage. Men took a more prominent part in this convention than in any which had preceded, due principally to the very active Hungarian Men's League for Woman Suffrage, which included a number well known in political and intellectual life. The International Alliance of Men's Leagues conducted an afternoon session in the Pester Lloyd hall with the Hon. Georg de Lukacs of Hungary, its president, in the chair. What can Men Do to Help the Movement for Woman Suffrage? was dis- cussed by Dr. C. V. Drysdale, Great Britain; Major C. V. Mans- feldt, Netherlands, and Dr. Andre de Maday, Hungary. On Thursday evening this International League held a mass meeting in the Academy of Music with rousing speeches for woman suf-