PRICE TWOPENCE NET.
THE PROGRESS OF THE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT.
An address to the Cambridge Branch of the Conservative and Unionist Women's Suffrage Association at their Annual Meeting on May 23, 1913. By Mrs. Henry Sidgwick.
It seems to me sometimes that we do not cheer ourselves as much as we might by thinking of the immense strides our movement has made in the last fifty years; so I propose to say a few words about it this afternoon, although there is not of course anything very new to say. For we need cheering because, notwithstanding the general progress of our cause, we are just now suffering from a serious set-back due to the action of the militant societies. They are clearly and visibly setting people against us. And it appears that not only in this country are they raising up enemies against us, but that our militants are hindering the movement in other countries.
Moreover, what is much worse than injury to the special cause which our society exists to promote, the militants are injuring our country and the cause of civilization and progress. The very existence and usefulness of society depends on the maintenance of law and order. The protection of the weak, the possibility of development in well being generally, all that society stands for, depends on its members being law abiding—on their respecting law and life and property. And here we have women, while urging that their admission to a formal share in the government of the country would be for its advantage, at the same time teaching by the most powerful method they can use,—namely, example—doctrines subversive of all social order; teaching that persons who cannot get the majority to agree with their view of what is advisable in the interest of the whole should injure and annoy the community in every way they conveniently can—proceeding even to incendiarism, and apparently threatening manslaughter.
It is heartbreaking that such things should be done in a good cause—and it is especially hard for women to bear because it hurts their pride in their own sex. They have to see not only their country injured, and the cause of women's suffrage, in whose name these things are done, retarded, but they have to see the reputation of their sex for good sense and sober judgment draggled in the mud.
This is the most serious—indeed, I think the only serious set-back our movement has had. It has on the whole been sufficiently wisely conducted to secure almost uniformly steady progress from its small beginnings to its present great proportions.