Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/165

 second reading by a very large majority, 255 voting for and 88 against. This was in 1911. In 1912 practically the same Bill was defeated by 222 to 208—a majority of 14 against the Bill. This was due to the absence of fourteen Labour members who were away on business connected with the coal strike, to the solid opposition of the Irish Party, who feared, in the interests of Home Rule, to embarrass the Government, and to the imprincipled behaviour of certain members of Parliament, former supporters, who voted against the Bill to annoy the militant society, which had broken a number of plate-glass windows as a protest, thereby punishing the innocent with the guilty.

The present position of the suffrage movement is this: Those who are militant, or who sympathise with militancy, demand a Government measure of full Adult Suffrage, and will rest content with nothing less. To this end they pester Cabinet Ministers at public meetings, destroy property, oppose Liberal candidates and all those who, by their support in the House, help to keep the Government in power. This includes a systematic attack upon the Labour Party and its candidates, although the Labour Party's record upon this question has been excellent. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies stands for equal suffrage also; but it will accept as