As is known, four States in the Union have granted the suffrage to their women. In 1869 Wyoming admitted women to vote on the same terms as men. The predictions of the Conservatives were so far falsified that in 1893 the State Legislature forwarded to the Legislatures of the other States in the Union an official resolution to the effect that the change had “wrought no harm, and done great good in many ways,” and added: “As the result of experience we urge every civilised community on earth to enfranchise its women without delay.” Wyoming has a remarkable record of social improvement, and the Legislature acknowledges great aid in this from the women. Divorce is far less frequent than in other States, so that the predicted disruption of domestic peace seems not to have followed. Nor have women tired of the vote they won, for to-day, after forty years’ possession, ninety per cent. of them vote.
Colorado granted woman franchise in 1893, and it has since had a fine record of social legislation. Judge Lindsey declared in 1906: “No one would dare to propose its repeal; and, if left to the men of the State, any proposition to revoke the right bestowed upon women would be overwhelmingly defeated. Many good laws have been obtained in Colorado which would not have been secured but for the power and influence of women.”
The evident success of the reform stimulated neighbouring States (who should be the most competent judges), and in 1896 Idaho and Utah adopted it. Their leading public men speak in the same terms of the effect, and a healthy stimulus has been given to social legislation. In 1906 the same proposal was submitted to the male electors of Oregon, and it was only lost by ten thousand votes. The loss was easily accounted for by the violent opposition of the saloon-keepers in the State. Ex-President Roosevelt has repeatedly advocated the reform in his own State, and the movement is steadily gaining ground in the other States.[13]
In England the movement has advanced far beyond the dreams of the women of half a century ago. Miss Blackburn gives an ample chronicle of the progress made since 1850, but I have (in writing the biography of George Jacob Holyoake) been able to see a good deal of correspondence of the period that throws light on the early group. Holyoake, a faithful disciple of the great Owen, had endeavoured for many years to stir women to revolt. As early as 1847 he had drawn up a programme (published in the Free Press), according to which they were to found a journal, hold meetings with women speakers, and agitate for legal and political justice. Ten years later, when he was in close relation with Miss Harriet Martineau, Miss Bessie R. Parkes (later Mrs. Belloc), Miss Barbara L. Smith (Mrs. Bodichon), Mrs. Stansfeld, Mrs. Crawford, and many other advanced women, they founded the Woman’s Journal, and began to increase. In the same year the rights of women figured prominently for the first time in an election-manifesto—that issued by Mr. Holyoake in his abortive campaign at Tower Hamlets. He had also issued as a pamphlet Mrs. J. S. Mill’s article, “Are Women fit for Politics?” Mill himself lent his powerful advocacy to the cause, and in 1869 issued his famous Subjection of Women.
The growing feeling was now stimulated by the agitation over the second Reform Bill in 1866-7, and strong parties were formed in Manchester and London. Disraeli himself assented to the principle, and within a fortnight a petition obtained 1,499 signatures. A great public meeting was held in Manchester (where Miss Lydia Belcher had been then working for two or three years) in 1868, and was addressed by Dr. Pankhurst and other well-known public men. Mr. Jacob Bright was another staunch supporter in the North. At London, in the following year, a very striking meeting was addressed by Professor Fawcett, Charles Kingsley, John Morley, Lord Houghton, Charles Dilke, P. A. Taylor, James Stansfeld, and Professor Masson. Mrs. Fawcett and Viscountess Amberley were now associated with the movement, and Professor Francis Newman and Mr. J. Chamberlain were quoted in favour of it.
In 1869 the first victory was won, when the municipal franchise was restored to women; and in the following year the School Boards were set up, and—apart from the metropolis—women could vote for and serve on them. With such prominent and eloquent supporters, the women movement now made rapid progress, and it was decided to open the long, historic siege of Westminster. The first Bill to be presented had the support of a petition of 134,000 women, and passed the first reading. But Gladstone was hostile, and it was rejected on second reading by 220 votes to 94. It would be impossible here to follow the long and spirited struggle in detail, and I must refer the reader to Miss Blackburn’s chronicle. From 1875 to 1879 a Bill was presented annually, and never failed to secure more than a hundred votes. John Bright, unhappily, thundered against it with all his eloquence, and in 1878 and 1879 the opponents made the most unsparing efforts to win the members. Even in 1879, however, the Bill had 103 supporters and 217 opponents. In 1883 a resolution in favour was supported by 114 members against 130. In 1884 an amendment to the Reform Bill was lost by 136 votes (271 to 135), but it was well known that scores of Liberal members merely voted against it owing to the threats of Mr. Gladstone. At the General Election of 1886 there were 343 friends of women suffrage returned to the House, and a fresh attempt was made in 1892. On the side of the supporters were now Mr. Balfour and Sir G. Wyndham, while Mr. Asquith began his career of hostility, and Mr. Gladstone threw his influence against it. The voting showed 152 friends to 179 opponents. The General Election of 1892 reduced the friends of the cause to 229, but the number rose to 232 in 1895, 274 in 1900, and to the extraordinary number of 420 in the present Parliament, which passed the second reading of Mr. Stanger’s Bill by a majority of 179.
No one who reflects seriously on the growth of the demand for woman suffrage since G. J. Holyoake quixotically expressed it in his manifesto of 1857 can hesitate in forecasting the future. In half a century the movement has expanded from a small group of a score of women writers to a body that can force 420 Members of Parliament to promise their support, can fill Hyde Park with half a million demonstrators, and can hold thousands of meetings throughout the country in the course of the year. No agitation, with anything like the same resources, ever made such advance in the course of thirty or forty years. Possibly two other organisations show a more imposing record—the early Free Trade movement and the modern Tariff Reform movement. But both these had enormous financial resources, dealt with a material issue, and had the organisation of existing great political parties to draw upon. The spirit of the age has borne women on as it advanced, and the future is assured. It is hardly too much to say that only the prejudice of one man prevents the granting of the demand to-day in England.
It will be in entire harmony with its early history and its finer traditions if England is the first great power to grant woman franchise, as it promises to be. Meantime, instances are multiplying in which smaller communities admit their women to political life with a happy success. In 1881 the miniature State of the Isle of Man granted a restricted franchise to women in the elections for the House of Keys. In Canada the question has been agitated since 1883, when Sir J. A. Macdonald inserted a clause enfranchising women in the Electoral Bill which he submitted to the Dominion Parliament. But the large Roman Catholic population of French Canadians blocks the way for the present in the Dominion.
In Australia and New Zealand the more independent and progressive spirit of the colonists needed little pressure to realise that men who resent the despotic dictation of other men have no title to dictate despotically to their women. New Zealand very early caught the echo of the struggle in England. In 1878 an Electoral Bill, enfranchising women ratepayers, was put through the House of Representatives by the Government, but failed—not exactly on the woman issue—to pass the Legislative Council. The women organised in 1886, and saw their Bill in 1891 carried by a majority of thirty-two to seven in the lower House, but lost by two votes in the Council. In 1893 it passed both Houses, and of the 109,000 enfranchised women no less than 90,000 voted at the next general election.
In most of the other colonies the victory has come with even less struggle. South Australia debated and carried a resolution in favour as early as 1885, though there was practically no demand on the part of the women. As a two-thirds majority was needed, the women began to educate and agitate, and the franchise was secured in 1894. In New South Wales the question was brought forward by Sir H. Parkes in his Electoral Bill of 1890, and a powerful organisation of women took up the demand in the colony. By 1901 the measure passed the House of Assembly by a large majority (fifty-one to seven), but was rejected by a small majority (twenty-six to twenty-one) in the Legislative Council. In the following year it passed into law. West Australia passed the reform almost without a struggle. The Women’s Franchise League of that colony was formed in the spring of 1899, and the suffrage was obtained the same year. In Victoria, during a ten years’ brisk agitation, a measure has passed the lower House six times with increased majorities, but is blocked by the Legislative Council. Tasmania granted the franchise to women in 1903, and Queensland in 1905. Finally, the franchise for the Federal Parliament of Australia was granted to women, after a very brief struggle, in 1902.[14]