Man of the World (lighting up): "We'll 'ave to give it 'em, I expect, Chorlie!"
(Reproduced by special permission of the Proprietors of Punch.)
Punch, November 30, 1910]
[Facing page 116.
Among the conversions to suffrage views at this time, none were more valuable to us than those of which we had evidence in the Press. Our old friends the Manchester Guardian, the Daily News, the Aberdeen Free Press, the Nation, the New Statesman, etc., stood by us, and were more valued than ever; but we welcomed new recruits in The Times, the Daily Mail, the Globe, the Evening News, and Observer. Miss Violet Markham, once a chief among the antisuffragists, was known to have withdrawn her opposition. Her war work had brought her in contact with some of our most active societies, and she was understood to have said that she would never in future say anything against suffragists. Her conversion may be assumed to have been fairly complete, as she consented to stand as a Liberal candidate for the Mansfield Division of Nottinghamshire at the General Election in December, 1918. One of our chief opponents in the Press was reported to have said: "The women were wonderful! Their adaptability, freshness of mind, and organizing skill were magnificent. Men were making too great a mess of the world, and needed helpers without their own prejudices, idleness, and self-indulgence."
The conversion of other well-known public men, formerly our opponents, became known about this time. Among these may be mentioned Lord Derby and his brother, Sir Arthur Stanley, Chairman of the British Red Cross and St. John of Jerusalem Nursing Association; Lord Faber, Mr. Winston Churchill, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Sir Croydon Marks. Two former antisuffragists, both Members of Parliament, one a Liberal and the other a Conservative, may be quoted as representative of what was going on in men's minds. The Liberal, who had hitherto pleaded militancy as an excuse for his antisuffragism, said at the annual meeting of Liberals in his constituency: "Any party which did not realize that the women had made good their cause by their services where they had formerly spoilt it by their threats must be blind"; and he held there should be no widening of the franchise for men without bringing in women on the same terms. The Conservative said simply: "I have always been an antisuffragist, but the women have served their country so magnificently that after this I shall support giving them the vote."
It is very significant that, while these wholesale conversions were taking place in this country, thus preparing the way for a sweeping victory for women's suffrage in the House of Commons, a similar change, brought about by similar causes, had already, in 1916, taken place in Canada. In that year a great suffrage movement swept over Canada, like a mighty wind, from the West to the East. One after another, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and British Columbia enfranchised their women. In British Columbia, a referendum (only men voting) showed a majority of more than two to one for women's franchise, and the soldiers' vote, which came in later, only swelled the large majority. Ontario followed. The late Sir Wilfred Laurier, once Liberal Premier, announced his conversion. He had for years been an important opponent.
The Nova Scotia legislature passed a Women's Suffrage Bill without opposition; and in May, 1917, Sir Robert Borden announced his intention to introduce a women's suffrage measure for the whole of Canada, thus giving women the federal vote. This intention was faithfully carried into effect in time for women to vote at the General Election, which was held in 1917. The Province of Alberta, in the meantime, had bettered its own record by returning a lady, Miss Roberta Catherine MacAdams, to its Legislative Assembly. An interesting feature of her election was that she was chosen entirely by men who were performing military service in Europe. There were twenty men candidates and one woman, and Miss MacAdams was elected. Thus the whole Empire seemed by one impulse to be moving in the direction of women's enfranchisement.
About this time a professional man of wide outlook and long experience wrote:
"One of the greatest benefits which I look for from the war is that women will come by their own. The tribute to the efficiency of women's work now being paid by managers of railways and munition works—many of them unwilling witnesses—are most hopeful signs. After this it seems impossible that women should be denied their fair share in the national councils. This opens a wide vista of other resulting reforms, which almost makes one wish to be young again, so that one might see what will happen in the next fifty years."