The Conciliation Bill has been again introduced. Again its scope and title have been modified to please the "democrats." Its text now is:—
Every woman possessed of a household qualification within the meaning of the representation of the people Act (1884) shall be entitled to be registered as a voter and when registered to vote for the county or borough in which the qualifying premises are situate.
For the purposes of this Act a woman shall not be disqualified by marriage from being registered as a voter provided that a husband and wife shall not both be registered as voters in the same Parliamentary Borough or County Division.
In reply to a deputation of women who waited upon him in October, 1910, Mr. Birrell said: "I am strongly of opinion that in the course of next year facilities must be given for the Bill. You are perfectly right," he added, "in feeling irritated and annoyed at the delay that has taken place and in insisting on a date for Parliamentary action."
Mr. Asquith's promise is that facilities for a Women's Suffrage measure will be granted during this Parliament. Such statements as these must now be held as binding, and the long standing Government veto of this question must be withdrawn.
So the gallant struggle for a great reform draws to its close. Full of stern fighting and bitter hardship as it has been, it has brought much to the women of our time—a courage, a self-reliance, a comradeship, and above all a spiritual growth, a conscious dwelling in company with the ideal, which has tended to strip the littleness from life and to give to it the character of an heroic mission.
May we prize and cherish the great selfless spirit that has been engendered, and, applying it to the purposes of our Government—the nation's housekeeping—the management of our collective affairs, may we, men and women together, not in antagonism, but in comradeship, strive on till we have built up a better civilisation than any that the world has known. For surely just as those children are fortunate who have two parents, a mother and a father, to care for them, so is the nation fortunate that has its mothers and its fathers, its brothers and its sisters, working together for the common good.
THE END