Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/73

 respect opposed to every precedent to be found in the constitutional history of England. It has hitherto been with Englishmen a primary and essential condition of the admission of any body of persons to a share in sovereign power that the class on whose behalf Parliamentary votes are demanded should be eager and ready to take up Parliamentary responsibilities. In 1832 nobody doubted that the middle classes, or in 1867 that the artisans, desired admission to the full powers of citizenship. But this primary condition of constitutional changes has in the present instance not been fulfilled. Many women, indeed, desire votes; a few women clamour passionately for votes. But a large number of English women protest against the introduction of woman suffrage; they deprecate the concession to themselves of rights which they regard as intolerable burdens, and the concession to other women of powers which they believe the recipients cannot exercise with advantage to the country.