Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/29

 the last three Parliaments; to be clear and comprehensible, this would take a considerable volume in itself. I wish only to point out that these women have been driven to throw their energies more and more into a political direction because they have been made to feel that their majority in Parliament would not act until political pressure was put upon them to compel them to act. "I have been a suffragist all my life," was the plaintive wail of the politician; "what more do you want?" Well, the women in the movement want the vote, and they are realising more and more, with every year that passes and nothing done, that they must concentrate upon winning the vote. It is hard enough at any time to get measures through Parliament unless there is a party advantage to be made out of them. Conceive how much this difficulty is multiplied when, besides the absence of party support, the reform is urged by women who have the powers of the purse and the press to contend with, and who have not one single vote wherewith to get the vote! Newspapers are owned, edited and written very largely by men and very largely for men; even what is known as the Woman's Page has, till recently, been contrived in the interests of tradesmen, for purposes of advertisement. Women are notoriously the poor sex. Even a woman who figures as a rich woman is often merely an article de luxe for the man who provides for her, and, though he may hang her neck with jewels, he does not readily give her a cheque for her suffrage society.