Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/37

 But the Married Women's Property Acts, combined with other enactments, such as the Guardianship of Infants Act, 1886, do much more than merely remove acknowledged grievances. They place one fact past a doubt—they demonstrate that a Parliament whereof every member is a man, and every elected member is chosen by men, is ready, at the instance of men advocating the rights of women, to remove every proved defect or unfairness in the laws relating to women. In 1909 we know, what even down to 1882 might have been open to question, that from a Parliament of men elected by men women can obtain, because in fact they have obtained, relief from every proved wrong. Women, in short, in modem England, exert, through free discussion and the certainty with which it tells on public opinion, a legislative influence which indefinitely diminishes, if it does not absolutely annihilate, the force of the argument that the women of England need Parliamentary representation as a guarantee against probable oppression.

.—Again, it is urged that the concession of Parliamentary suffrage to