Page:The case for women's suffrage.djvu/216

 Sad as I was to see that letter, I yet was pleased to think some new arguments would be forthcoming from such an intellectual source; for the case against Women's Suffrage is so feeble that we speakers in its favour have to make our bricks without straw. The opposition is indeed in a pitiable position. Women already may vote for poor-law guardians, for municipal committees, for members of the school-board, for the county council—and all this the opposition has suffered more or less patiently—but some mysterious magic attaches to the M.P. This fearful and wonderful being is too holy for the touch of woman. But Mrs. Ward has found an argument, which the Times applauds as that of a female Daniel come to judgment, to which the Pall Mall devotes an ecstatic leader, to which even the Westminster draws reverential attention. It is that if women had votes they would have Power without Responsibility for action. I may be deficient in intelligence, but I am absolutely unable to understand what this wonderful argument means. I have had a vote all these years, and never have I felt this mysterious responsibility, or been called on to take the faintest action. It would seem that Mrs. Humphry Ward can only refer to War. But she explicitly denies that. She says that War is only one of the many fields of action into which women cannot enter, and on which the existence of the State depends, and that we all know what they are. As I neither know what they are nor understand what they have to do with the question, I looked into the Times leader for enlightenment. But it only repeats, parrot-like, that there are many kinds of action. I consulted the Pall Mall oracle—there are many kinds of action, it echoes oracularly.

Mrs. Ward reminds me of the little girl who cried out: "Oh, mother, there are a million cats in the garden." "Oh, my child," said the mother, "you mustn't exaggerate." "Well, there are six cats." "No, no; where do you see