Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/78

 so complex, so delicate, so nicely poised, that one push from a foolish woman's little finger will send it reeling to destruction." The Anti wants to make our flesh creep; but it refuses. We don't for a moment admit that the Empire, with its millions of men and women, belongs to men any more than it belongs to women. We can't believe, either, that the Empire is in so shockingly delicate a condition as the Antis make out. The cry is for safety. Only Death is safe.

Life is never safe, yet the happy warrior prefers life. The Empire was certainly not made by people who chattered of safety and permanence, nor will it be kept by such people.

The direction in which reactionaries anticipate most trouble is one where I believe it would be last to show itself. It is in foreign affairs, in the relations with other countries, in the issues of peace and war that they see most danger, if women shared responsibility with men. I do not believe it, because for one thing these matters are exceedingly remote from the electorate, and in the vague way in which popular sentiment makes itself felt it is highly improbable that women's sentiment would on any particular issue differ from men's. It is difficult to conceive of Englishwomen loving Germans while Englishmen were burning to cut their throats. What is possible is that women may gradually help men to