Women and War Work

by Helen Miller Moyes

Women pointed out that they did not want Women's Suffrage as a reward—but as a simple right. They had not worked for a reward, but for their country, as any citizen would, but, in our country, the great converting power is practical proof of value and they had that overwhelmingly in our work. The Press came out practically solidly for Women's Suffrage. The work of women was praised in every paper and one declared, "It cannot be tolerable that we should return to the old struggle about admitting them to the franchise." Eminent Anti-Suffragists, inside and outside of the House of Commons, frankly admitted their conversion. Mr. Asquith, the old enemy of Women's Suffrage, said in a memorable speech: "They presented to me not only a reasonable, but, I think, from their point of view, an unanswerable case.... They say that when the war comes to an end, and when the process of industrial reconstruction has to be set on foot, have not the women a special claim to be heard on the many questions which will arise directly affecting their interests, and possibly meaning for them large displacement of labour? I cannot think that the House will deny that, and, I say quite frankly, that I cannot deny that claim." It was clear the whole question of franchise would need to be gone into—the soldiers' vote was lost to him under our system when he was away, and the sailors' redistribution was long overdue, an election, as things were, would be absolutely unrepresentative. So after several attempts to deal with the problem in sections, a Committee was set up under the Speaker of the House of Commons to go into the whole question of Franchise reform and registration.

The Committee was composed of five Peers and twenty-seven members of the House of Commons, and started its work in October, 1916, and in its report, April, 1917, it recommended, by a majority, that a measure of enfranchisement should be given to women.

The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and the Consultative Committee, which had been formed in 1916 by the N.U.W.S.S., of representatives of all constitutional societies, presented various memorials, notably an admirable memorandum of women's work and opinion in favour, prepared by the National Union for the Speakers' Conference during its sittings. After its recommendations while the bill was being drafted, Mrs. Henry Fawcett, LL.D., the President of the N.U.W.S.S., headed a deputation received by the Premier, Mr. Lloyd George, who has always been a supporter of Women's Suffrage. This was certainly one of the most representative and interesting deputations that ever went to Downing Street. It numbered over fifty and every woman in it represented a great section of industrial and war workers—Miss Mary MacArthur, the Trade Union Leader was there, and Miss Margaret Bondfield, Mrs. Flora Annie Steele, the authoress; Lady Forbes Robertson, for actresses; Miss Adelaide Anderson, our Chief Women Factory Inspector; Mrs. Oliver Strachey, Parliamentary Honourable Secretary of the National Union, whose work has been tireless and invaluable in the House; a woman munition worker, a woman conductor, a railway woman worker, a woman chemist, a woman from a bank, a clerk, a shipyard worker, a nurse, a V.A.D., an eminent woman Doctor, a peeress in Lady Cowdray, who has done so much for the British Women's Hospitals and so many other war objects, and women representatives of every calling in the nation at peace and war. Mrs. Pankhurst, who has been very active in war work, was also present on the Premier's invitation, and Mrs. Fawcett brought a Welshwoman who made her plea in her own language, the Premier's own, too, and the one he loves to hear. In his reply, he assured them the bill would contain a measure of enfranchisement for women as drafted, and he was quite sure the House would carry it.

The recommendations of the Speakers' Conference were an agreed compromise, and the Representation of the People Bill, as it was called on its introduction, has gone through very much on the lines of the recommendations. It arranges for postal or proxy votes for the soldier, the sailor and the merchant seaman, it simplifies the qualifications for men, it retains the University vote for men and extends it to women, and it enfranchises women of thirty years of age on a residence qualification, and all wives of voters of the same age. It disfranchises, for the time, the conscientious objector who will do no national service. The age at which our men vote is twenty-one. The higher age of the women was a compromise, which was accepted by all women's societies and by labour women, though it was not the terms they stood for—equality.

If we had it on the same terms as men, we should very greatly outnumber the men. There were over a million more women than men before the war and a new electorate greater than all the men's numbers brought in at once was not considered wise. To press for it would have wrecked our chances.

This measure enfranchises six million women, and about ten million men are now voters, so we have a very fair proportion.

The women's clause was carried, with only thirty-five dissentients and later only seventeen voted against it.

In this same bill, with practically no discussion, an amendment was carried enfranchising the wives of local government electors.

It is difficult to adequately express the confidence, the desire, and the willingness to co-operate, that there is now between our men and women.