Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/213

 of this reform, will be its great safeguard once it has been won. The women's vote would be on a precarious tenure if it were won by one party in the teeth of the bitter opposition of the whole of the other party. The peaceful and fruitful use of the vote depends upon a general conversion of the country to the principles involved. Representative institutions can only work well by common consent and goodwill.

Militants sometimes defend their violence by saying how trivial, after all, it has been. This, of course, is true. But what a strange argument to use in defence of war! "See how little damage our guns do!" And although I am convinced that they refrain from more serious crime, because their consciences revolt from it, they lay themselves open to the unthinking retort that they only do not do more because they can't; a retort not only untrue, but provocative, to people sufficiently childish to be "dared" into action. What women have to do is to make their demand a formidable demand, and they cannot do this by adopting methods which the enormous mass of women will never whole-heartedly apply. By continued education, by well-considered and thoroughly prepared political action, by constant readiness for negotiation, by taking men always on their best side, and by making the help of women worth having, suffragists will enlist an ever-growing mass of women to hard work and sacrifice, and, what is more, they will convince men of the constructive