Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/14

 exaggerated the wisdom and the justice of yielding, where possible, to every wish entertained by a large number of our fellow-citizens. Since 1885 I have never doubted that a majority of the inhabitants of Ireland are opposed to the Union with Great Britain. I have also never seen the least reason to doubt that the people of the United Kingdom ought to insist upon the maintenance of the Union. Political action, further, under leaders such as the Duke of Devonshire, John Bright, Chamberlain, and Lord James of Hereford, none of whom showed the least sympathy with the movement for woman suffrage, made me begin to question the strength of the arguments, especially the moral arguments, used in its support. At the same time, Gladstone's appeals to the great heart of the people, to the masses against the classes, and generally to sentiment, showed me how easily emotional politics might produce the palliation of gross injustice. Nor could I fail to perceive with new clearness the danger which lurked under the concession of sovereign power to women, who as a body are more readily influenced than men by the emotions of the moment. I