In Denmark, after many years of agitation, women were given municipal suffrage in April, 1908, and were also made eligible to municipal offices. All those women are enfranchised who have attained their twenty-fifth year and who have an annual income of at least 225 dollars in the cities (less in rural districts), or whose husbands pay the required amount of taxes. Moreover, servant girls are enfranchised, in whose case board and lodging are added to the wages they receive. During the first election in which women participated, which took place in 1909, seven women were elected to the city council of Copenhagen. In Iceland, women have municipal suffrage and are eligible to municipal offices since 1907.
The struggle for woman suffrage in England has a considerable history. According to an old law, in the mediaeval ages, ladies of the manors had the right of suffrage and also exercised judicial power. In the course of time they were deprived of these rights. In the election reform acts of 1832, the word “person” had been employed, which includes members of both sexes. Yet the law was construed not to refer to women, and they were barred from voting wherever they made an attempt to do so. In the election reform bill of 1867, the word “person” had been replaced by the word “man.” John Stuart Mill moved to reintroduce the word “person” instead of “man,” explicitly stating as the object of his motion that thereby women would be given the suffrage on the same terms as men. The motion was voted down by 194 against 73 votes. Sixteen years later, in 1883, another attempt was made in the house of commons to introduce woman suffrage. The bill was rejected by a majority of only 16 votes. Another attempt failed in 1884, when a much larger membership of the house voted down a suffrage bill by a majority of 136 votes. But the minority were not discouraged. In 1886 they succeeded in having a bill providing for the introduction of parliamentary woman suffrage passed in two readings. The dissolving of parliament prevented a final decision.
On November 29, 1888, Lord Salisbury delivered an address in Edinburgh, in which he said, among other things: “I sincerely hope that the day may not be distant when women will participate in parliamentary elections and will help to determine the course of the government.” Alfred Russell Wallace, the well-known scientist and follower of Darwin, expressed himself upon the same question in the following manner: “When men and women shall be free to follow their best impulses, when no human being shall be hampered by unnatural restrictions owing to the chance of sex, when public opinion will be controlled by the wisest and best and will be systematically impressed upon the young, then we will find that a system of human selection will manifest itself that will result in a transformed humanity. As long as women are compelled to regard marriage as a means whereby they may escape poverty and neglect, they are and remain at a disadvantage compared to men. Therefore the first step in the emancipation of women is to remove all the restrictions which prevent them from competing with men in all branches of industry and in all occupations. But we must advance beyond this point and permit women to exercise their political rights. Many of the restrictions from which women have hitherto suffered would have been spared them if they had had a direct representation in parliament.”
On April 27, 1892, the second reading of a bill by Sir A. Rollit was again rejected by 175 against 152 votes. On February 3, 1897, the house of commons passed a suffrage bill, but, owing to various manœuvres of the opponents, the bill did not come up for the third reading. In 1904 the same scene was re-enacted. Of the members of parliament elected to the house of commons in 1906, a large majority had declared themselves in favor of woman suffrage prior to their election. On June 21, 1908, a grand demonstration was held in Hyde Park. On February 28, a bill providing that women should be given parliamentary suffrage on the same terms as men, had been passed by 271 against 92 votes.[180]
In regard to municipal administration, woman suffrage in Great Britain is constantly expanding. In the parish councils tax-paying women have a voice and vote as well as men. Since 1899, women in England have the right to vote for town, district and county councils. In the rural districts all proprietors and lodgers—including the female ones—who reside in the parish or district are entitled to vote. All inhabitants who are of age may be elected to the above-named bodies, regardless of sex. Women vote for members of school boards, and, since 1870, are eligible to same on the same terms as men. But in 1903 the reactionary English school law has deprived women of the right of being elected to the school board in the county of London. Since 1869 independent and unmarried women have the right to vote for the privy councils. Two laws enacted in 1907 made unmarried women in England and Scotland eligible to district and county councils. But a woman who may be elected as chairman of such a council, shall thereby not hold the office of justice of peace that is connected with it. Women are also eligible to parish councils and as overseers of the poor. The first woman mayor was elected in Aldeburgh on November 9, 1908. In 1908 there were 1162 women on English boards of charity and 615 women on school boards. In Ireland, tax-paying women have had municipal suffrage since 1887, and since 1896 they may vote for members of boards of charity and be elected to same. In the British colony of North America, most of the provinces have introduced municipal woman suffrage on similar terms as in England. In the African colonies of England, municipal woman suffrage has likewise been introduced.
In France the first slight progress was brought about by a law enacted on February 27, 1880. By this law a school board was created consisting of women school principals, school inspectors, and inspectors of asylums. Another law of January 23, 1898, gave women engaged in commerce the right to vote for members of courts of trade, and, since November 25, 1908, women may be elected as members of courts of trade themselves.
In Italy women may vote for members of courts of trade and be elected as such since 1893. They are also eligible to boards of supervisors of hospitals, orphan asylums, foundling asylums, and to school boards.
In Austria women belonging to the class of great landowners may vote for members of the Diet and the imperial council, either personally or by proxy. Taxpaying women, over 24, may vote for town and city councillors; married women exercise the suffrage indirectly through their husbands, others through some other authorized agent. All the women belonging to the class of great land-owners have the right to vote for members of the Diet, but, with the exception of Lower Austria, they do not exercise it personally. Only in the one domain referred to, the law of 1896 provides that the great landowners, regardless of sex, must cast their vote in person. Women may also vote for members of courts of trade, but may not be elected to same.
In Germany women are explicitly excluded from voting for any law-making bodies. In some parts of the country women may vote for town-councillors. In no city or rural community are women eligible to municipal offices. In the cities they are also excluded from the right to vote for any office. The exceptions to this rule are some cities in the Grand-duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, in the principalities of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, in Bavaria, and the little town of Travemuende, in Lubeck.
In the Bavarian cities all women who are house-owners, and in the cities of Saxony-Weimar and Schwarzburg, all women citizens are given the suffrage, but only in Travemuende are they permitted to exercise it in person.[181] In most of the rural communities where the right of suffrage depends upon a property or tax-paying qualification, women are included in this right. But they must vote by proxy and are not eligible to any office themselves. This is the case in Prussia, Brunswick, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony-Weimar, Hamburg, and Lubeck. In the Kingdom of Saxony a woman may exercise the suffrage if she be a landowner and unmarried. When she becomes married, her suffrage devolves upon her husband. In those states in which municipal suffrage depends upon citizenship, women are generally excluded. This is the case in Wurtemberg, in the Bavarian Palatinate, in Baden, Hessia, Oldenburg, Anhalt, Gotha, and Reuss. In Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, Coburg, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, women can become citizens on the same terms as men, and they have the suffrage, not limited by any property qualification. But here, too, they are prohibited from exercising this right in person.