Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/54

 possession of votes would in some instances increase the moral authority of women; what I do deny is that the increase in their moral power would be anything like as great as suffragists expect. If on any point of ethics the vast majority of English women were agreed, their agreement would certainly tell on English opinion; but in estimating the moral effect likely to be produced by woman suffrage, we must remember that it is a sure sign either of ignorance or of fanaticism to expect from legislation effects produced not by law, but by changes in the beliefs or the convictions of the public.

2. It is constantly assumed that the votes of women would assuredly tell against everything which many—let me say which most—good women hold to be evils, more or less suppressible by law or by national policy.

Of the good effect of women's votes in the suppression of what is popularly called vice I have the gravest doubts. This is a subject of which it is impossible and hardly desirable to write with absolute freedom. Three remarks, however, I may be allowed to make. The first is that the effort to put down by