Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/75

 but in so adjusting necessary burdens with due regard to the lines of irremovable difference as to secure the most even distribution of pressure. We believe that the fact that Nature has irrevocably imposed certain burdens on our sex constitutes a claim, as a matter of justice, that we should be relieved from some part of those functions which men are competent to share with us.'

Nor is there the least lack of public spirit in the protest by freeborn English women against subjection to a sovereignty of women which they neither desire nor revere, and which they believe would be disastrous to the country. One point is past dispute. Every reason which supports the claim of women to votes supports also the right of women to be consulted on the question whether they shall be given votes or not. It is impossible to maintain that women have a right to determine every matter which concerns the interest of England or of the British Empire, but have no right to be consulted whether it is well for England and for women themselves that the