Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/148

 with the Socialist movement, and that woman suffragists are invariably Socialists. Many woman suffragists are Socialists, but it is also true that many Socialists are antisuffragists. Mr Belfort Bax is one of the foremost Socialists of his time, but he is a bitter and uncompromising opponent of feminism in all its branches. Woman suffrage might be established by law next week, but the system of society known as Socialism would still be far away. Many Socialists believe that the establishment of woman suffrage would actually put back the cause of Socialism for generations, and for that reason give only a reluctant support to the woman suffrage movement. Socialism stands for the public ownership of public necessaries and the organisation of these for the uses of the people. Socialists are to be found everywhere, though, no doubt, in fewer numbers than in other political movements, who, when it comes to be a question of State privileges and not State duties, are as diffident about including women in the term people as any capitalist opponent of woman suffrage might be.

The reason for the common confusion of thought in relation to the movements—Socialism and Woman Suffrage—is to be found in the fact that Socialism, as a democratic movement, is bound in the very nature