Page:Woman suffrage; a reply.djvu/9



HE recent utterance of Mr. Goldwin Smith against Woman Suffrage has been for many friends of the cause, it may be confessed, a painful surprise. It seemed strange and almost portentous that the voice which had been so often, so boldly, and so eloquently raised on behalf of Liberal principles, should suddenly be heard issuing from the Conservative camp, in opposition to a measure which many Liberals regard as amongst the most important of pending reforms. No one, however, who has read Mr. Smith's essay will have any doubt that the opinions expressed in it—urged as they are with all his characteristic energy—are as genuine and sincere as anything he has ever written on the Liberal side. Whether he has made any converts to his views amongst the supporters of the movement he has attacked, is more than I can say; but as one of those who have not been convinced by his reasonings, I wish to state in what they seem to me to be unsatisfactory, and why, having given them my best consideration, I still remain in my former state of mind.

There is one portion of Mr. Smith's remarks into which, I may as well say here at the outset, I do not propose to follow him. I refer to what he has said of Mr. Mill's relations with his wife, and of his estimate of her mental powers. These are points respecting which, in my opinion, the data do not exist, at least within reach of the general public, for