THE WOMEN’S VOTE
NATURE VERSUS POLITICS

Those far-sighted and indulgent men who supported “Votes for Women” should surely be enjoying to the full the result of their pliability and humour! In the “Coupon Election” they expected six million feminine votes—for Coalition, of course. If we conjugate Ministerial messages as one verb, they could all have been rendered thus: “I expect, you expect, he expects” women to do their duty. But one point seems rather overlooked, and that is, the precise idea women have of duty. When I say “women” I mean women in the grand majority—not a few hundreds or even a few thousand agitators. And I dare to suggest that these “women in the grand majority,” do not care about their “votes” in the least—and that all the roaring of a megaphone press will never make them care. Nature is, and always will be, too strong for them, and Nature has not endowed them, except in a few rare cases, with a taste for politics. But Nature has given them far greater qualities, and has organised them in a special way—a way most beautiful, wonderful, and nobly privileged; and the greatest social reformer that ever risked the oft-tried sorry business of “re-constructing” civilisation, can never alter the work for which Nature is alone responsible. I do not believe that Women, speaking in the plural of nationalities, ever wanted the vote at all—but that seeing (and hearing) the wild clamour of some of their sisters, who shrieked and smashed themselves into notoriety, they were attracted by the fun of it, the noise of it, the curious, rowdy, non-feminine spirit of it, and followed the whooping and the yells with the fascinated amusement of children running after the “One Man Band” who beats a drum with his elbows and clashes cymbals with his feet. Mr. Lloyd George is a wise thinker in his generation, but his sagacity will be at fault if it should be proved (Heaven forbid!) that after all—yes, after all the screaming and smashing of windows, and all the efforts made on their behalf—the women as a whole prove apathetic and indifferent to this wonderful privilege they have fought for and won!

There is a French story of a certain spoilt little lady whose husband adored her, from the glimmer of her topmost blonde curl to the point of her broidered shoe, and who expressed to him her ardent wish for a diamond chain she had seen in an expensive jeweller’s window. Her husband, though rich and generous, apparently paid no attention to her oft-repeated request, till one day he suddenly presented her with the coveted ornament as a “surprise packet” and token of his affection. But she pushed the gift aside and gave way to bitter tears. “Why, oh, why did you bring me such a thing?” she sobbed. “I shall never wear it! Oh, why didn’t you buy me that dear weeny-teeny dog I saw yesterday! The weeny pet! I would have loved it so! I would have talked to it about you!—it would have been such a companion! Oh, I did want that weeny darling!”

There is a moral in this story (despite the contempt it must evoke among future female M.P.s), and “the pint,” as Captain Cuttle or his friend Jack Bunsby remarked, “lies in the application on it.” Whether Mr. Lloyd George and the supporters of the Women’s Franchise will perceive it is problematical—but whether they do or do not, there is a curious nature-fact about Woman which is frequently missed or overlooked by Man. It is this: That when she is given what she wants, she doesn’t want it! That is to say—the gaining of her objective concludes her active interest in it; the thing is possessed, and promptly loses its value. With the swiftness and ease of a butterfly she deserts the blossom from which she has stripped the pollen!

“Equality of the sexes” is one of the advanced feminine war-cries, when every one with a grain of common sense knows there is and can be no such equality. Nature’s law forbids. Nature insists on contrasts; the small and the great, the weak and the strong, the light and the dark. And women know well enough that their “calling and election” are superior to those of men—they are the makers of the race and the ordainers of the future, but their strength is not on the hustings or in the polling-booth—it is in the silence and sweetness of “Home.” The home is the acorn from which springs the oak of a nation. Women’s own instincts teach them that their power is too sacred a thing for common discussion; and when, in their despite, such discussion is let loose in the press by vulgarly interested sexualists and sensualists, their contempt is not concealed. They feel, strongly enough too, when questioned in the right spirit, that it is not needful for them to mix with the undignified scrambling of political methods; and any “apathy” as to the use of the vote, is simply that they have, or think they have, something better to do. Yes, indeed! They really and truly think that their home affairs, their children, their daily duties, even their clothes, are more in their line than “Coalition”! They are for unity of purpose most assuredly—all of one mind as to the punishment of surely the most miserable man on earth, the ex-Kaiser—equally of one mind concerning the barring out of the Huns from further interference of their own folks’ businesses—but they think, and rightly too, that so far as putting the nation’s house in order goes, the men should be trusted to do it. There was something very funny in Mr. Lloyd George’s opening words to a women’s meeting at Queen’s Hall—“I feel very shy and solitary!” Did he? Surely this was a bit of “camouflage”? But putting all blandishment aside, it is just a toss-up as to whether women’s votes will be quite as influential as prophesied. One of the surprises of the Coupon Election was Mr. Lloyd George’s “sweep-aside” of a chivalrous male candidate in favour of Miss Pankhurst, who, so it is understood, threatened the direst things against him in past “militant” days! Generosity and magnanimity on the part of a Prime Minister to a Suffragette, a male to a female, could no farther go!—but one wonders if the modern “Glendower” realised the effect his action had on many thousands of non-Pankhurst women? For sheer humiliation it came second only to the surrender of the German Fleet! Whether it served as good a purpose was answered by the result. “Drive Nature out of the door, she comes flying back through the window,” and one of the most curious, purely natural traits in woman’s complex character, is that she loves to have her own way up to a certain point, but when that point is gained she has had enough, and turns to man with a “Here! You take it!” And no woman has yet been returned to Parliament, for which we may all, if we have any common sense, thank God, and hope for the best that she never will be!

A “HAPPY THOUGHTS” DAY
(Written specially for the Grantham Red Cross Outings Fund)

Here is an idea for every one—young and old, rich and poor! Let us institute a “Happy Thoughts” Day!—one day out of the seven on which we resolve to think only “Happy” thoughts! Thoughts of kindness, tenderness, hope, and unselfishness—thoughts which, even while we think them, take fairy wings and fly from ourselves to our neighbours and propagate other happy thoughts, creating cheerfulness and hope wherever they go. It is not easy, perhaps, to think “happy” thoughts in dark days, but no good task can be accomplished without difficulty. A much more simple and convenient thing it is to grumble!—to lay our own faults on the shoulders of others,—to believe that our own troubles are the worst in the world,—to sneer at other folks’ manners, looks, clothes, and opinions, and to throw out mocking jests and cruel laughter at those whom we affect to despise yet secretly envy;—but on our “Happy Thoughts” day we can have none of these ugly and ordinary vulgarities,—we must make a bid for something higher and more exquisite in grace and refinement. We must think “happily” of others while we hope they will also think “happily” of us. We will make up our minds to find our friends beautiful, charming, and lovable; we will cheerfully admire them and their appearance and conversation,—we will agree that it is a special blessing conferred on us that we have any friends at all,—and we will confess that our lot in life is much better than we have any right to expect. And we will send our “happy thoughts” across the seas to suffering nations, conjoined with our hopeful prayers—prayers that they may be sustained and comforted, and by God’s mercy be victorious. And above all, we will let our “Happy Thoughts Day” reflect its cheeriness in ourselves,—in our looks and bearing, our talk and expression, so that we may be the carriers of mental sunshine everywhere, even during the passing of the darkest thundercloud. One day out of the seven, dear friends!—take it and consecrate it to “Happy Thoughts,” happy thoughts of earth, of heaven, of God and man,—and you will find it a day on which you unconsciously grow stronger, braver, pleasanter to look at, more valuable to know,—for happiness is a powerful magnet, and never fails to draw others to its vital line. May a “Happy Thoughts Day” be the true holiday of every loving and faithful soul!