The Progress of the Women's Suffrage Movement

by Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick

When I first became aware of the movement—in the late sixties or early seventies—it was in the stage of being met by ridicule. People who were not in favour of it did not generally argue—they laughed. This no doubt kept the timid away, but as a matter of fact very few were interested. An old friend here was reminding me the other day of a meeting of the Cambridge Suffrage Society held she believes in the early eighties. I do not think I attended it myself, though I am not sure. It was an open meeting, and a lady from London was to address it. The committee did not venture to take any room larger than the Alderman's parlour at the Guildhall. But that was too large. The committee sat at the table near the speaker, and six or eight other ladies came in and were asked to sit close to the committee at the table, so as to look less scattered—and that was all the audience the visitor had to address. And that, according to my friend's general recollection, and my own too, was the usual type of the early meetings organised by the Cambridge Society.

But gradually all this changed—and the degree of change may be measured by comparing with these early meetings those which have taken place at Cambridge in recent years. No one laughs now, or very few. The question is taken seriously even by opponents, and the number of people sufficiently interested to wish to hear about it is very large.

There is another measure of the progress made of which we old people, who have been suffragists for a long time, are conscious. We can see among our own friends and acquaintances people who have been doubtful but have now pronounced themselves in favour of giving women the parliamentary vote. I remember, for instance, a conversation many years ago with a lady who is now an ardent suffragist, but who surprised me then by her doubtful attitude. I see others who 20 or 30 years ago I should have expected to find opposed, now taking a leading part on our side in their own neighbourhoods. I remember another conversation in which a man who was or had been a Member of Parliament—I forget which—was taking part and was expressing great doubts about the advisability or the advantage to themselves of giving votes to women. Some one present said that the increasing tendency to regulate by legislation industrial matters affecting certain classes of women specially, or affecting them differently from men, was an important reason why women should vote. He admitted at once that women ought to have the vote if such legislation were increasing, but he doubted the fact at the moment. That man is a supporter now. What impresses me is the number of people one knows who are now supporters, and even active supporters, and have become so without one's being able to point to any particular moment when what I may call their conversion took place.

What causes besides active propaganda have contributed to this progress? I think we can point to some. Among them an important place is, I think, to be assigned to the increase of legislative interference in arrangements connected with work and wages of which I have just spoken—to the disappearance for good or ill of the old laisser faire. When Parliament tries to legislate about such matters, it becomes very obvious that in certain ways the interests of women and of men are not the same, and are even occasionally opposed—not on the whole, of course, but in certain particulars. And if so it seems also obvious that women should have a voice in the legislation, for it is so clear that within limits we all know better what suits ourselves than others can know for us.

This last consideration is an important principle at the base of democratic government—at least, so long as this does not degenerate into a mere tyranny of the majority—and the extension of the franchise in 1867 and 1884 has, I think, had a very important effect in bringing home to people that the arguments for extending the suffrage in the case of men apply equally to women with the same qualifications. I think we should find that many speeches used in favour of widening the suffrage in 1884 would serve as speeches at a women's suffrage meeting. I used to be impressed with the fact at the time, I remember. Probably we have noticed that the propriety of widows and other women householders having votes when the professed basis of the franchise is household suffrage, occurs of itself to the man in the street—or rather, perhaps, I should say to the man in the country village.

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.