I travelled the other day in a railway carriage filled with a party of women travelling from somewhere beyond Cambridge—I do not know what they were—widows and daughters of rather small tradesmen perhaps. Among other things they talked of among themselves was the suffrage—and very angry they were with the militants. "But mind you," said one, "I am not altogether against women having votes. I think it only fair that widows with houses should have it." I thought she and her companions belonged clearly to that neutral body of which I spoke just now; some day, when sound suffrage views are put before them, they will come down on the right side of the fence if not previously too much exasperated.
Then, again, as regards educated people at least, I think the large and increasing number of educated women engaged in work useful to the community outside their own homes has had a great effect on the views both of men and women about the vote.
These are three very important influences affecting the general atmosphere in which views are formed—the increased tendency to legislation affecting employments, the spread in all classes and parties of democratic views, the work done by women. And then, last but not least, is the steady work carried on in public and in private by the societies for promoting women's suffrage and their members from the commencement of the movement onwards. Our own society is a young one, but the pioneer societies now merged in the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies have worked hard in times of hope and in times of discouragement for half a century, and their labours have not been in vain. A movement grows like a snowball—the larger the number of its supporters the more rapidly it increases. Progress therefore of late years has been more rapid and more obvious than it used to be, but none the less the possibility of the present progress is largely due to the early efforts of the pioneers.
I think some of my hearers may demur to the view I expressed that the set-back due to militancy is the only serious one from which we have suffered. They may say that, for instance, the repeated attempts and repeated failures to get a bill through Parliament—failures which we cannot of course entirely attribute to the militants—are set-backs. But I do not think failures of this sort are set-backs at all. They are only waves on a rising tide.
If in a rising tide we watch to see when a sand castle will be overwhelmed, we shall see one little wave after another approaching and receding without apparently affecting anything. One wave perhaps will get very near, and yet fail, and perhaps many succeeding waves will get even less near. But the failure of these waves does not set back the tide. That rises steadily all the time and ultimately and inevitably a wave does at length reach and overwhelm the castle.
The analogy fails in one point. These waves that roll up the sandy shore have no real effect on the tide—they are mere ripples on its surface. But wisely conducted assaults on the suffrage citadel—such as attempts to pass bills or resolutions in Parliament—are more than this. They do help the tide to rise. The effort is not wasted even if it fails at the moment. The tide rises the faster for it. Of course such partial failures are very disappointing at the moment, especially to those who have worked hard to secure success. It is impossible for those who have thrown their whole energies into producing a wave which really will, they think, reach the castle at last, to see it roll back like its predecessors, without a sinking of heart, without a momentary feeling of hopelessness. It is depressing to have to begin again and roll up another wave, all the more because the energy needed to overcome what seems the stupidity of those who disagree with us might, we think, if set free by success be more profitably employed for the good of the world. It is difficult sometimes to keep up courage—for the young especially, for age brings more patience. But it is just because these partial failures are trying that we must restore our sense of proportion by contemplating from time to time the great progress that has been made on the whole, and so get courage for fresh effort.