Page:The case for women's suffrage.djvu/126

 BY MABEL ATKINSON, M.A.

(Author of "Local Government in Scotland.")

HE militant Suffragist agitation, if able to count on ability and enthusiasm of a kind never aroused by the older movement, has yet by its decided action and definite policy stirred up not only all the old prejudices, but is confronted by newer misunderstandings even among those who on abstract grounds are in favour of the principle of women's enfranchisement. Its policy is assailed on the one hand by people who are so advanced that they will not even temporarily accept anything less than adult suffrage. These persons who, by refusing to take a single step forward because that one step will not land them at their goal, have done us and their own principles the great injury of providing for reactionaries, who do not dare any longer openly to declare themselves opposed to Women's Suffrage, an excuse for blocking in the name of progress further movement. On the other hand, the agitation is confronted by a pathetic bewilderment among the orthodox Liberals—among 122