The parliamentary history of the next few years may be very briefly recorded. In 1877 the bill had again passed into the hands of our beloved leader, Mr. Jacob Bright, who had resumed his place in the House of Commons, as member of parliament for Manchester. After a debate of great interest, and while our advocate, Mr. Leonard Courtney, was speaking, the opponents of the measure burst into a tumultuous uproar, which effectually drowned his voice. This new method of setting up shouts and howls in place of arguments, has since been brought to bear on more than one public question, but it was then comparatively novel. Mr. Courtney, nothing daunted, would not give way, and when six o'clock, which is the hour for closing the debates on Wednesday, struck, it was no longer possible to take a division.
The following year, 1878, Mr. Jacob Bright was unable from failing health to continue in charge of the bill in the House of Commons, and a deputation of members from each society waited on Mr. Courtney and placed it in his hands. June 19, was set for the second reading. In his speech Mr. Courtney dwelt on the benefits that may accrue to women from representation. He added:
The political reasons for granting the prayer of the bill appear to me to be undeniable, but I confess they are not the reasons why I most strongly support it. I believe it will develop a fuller, freer and nobler character in women by admitting them into the sphere of political thought and duty. Some may say, "But what is to be the end?" I do not know that we are always bound to see the goal towards which we are moving. If we are moving on right principles; if we are actuated by a feeling of justice; if the hand that moves above us and leads us on is a hand in which we can place implicit confidence,—then I say, trust to that light, follow that hand, without fear of the future.
The bill was again lost by 219 votes against 140, thus showing a smaller adverse majority than on the last division. This year Mr. Russell Gurney died. His name will always be associated with the women's suffrage movement, which he had supported ever since Mr. Mill's division in 1867. The death of Lady Anna Gore Langton about this time was also a severe loss.
The last time that the question was brought before that parliament was the following summer, 1870. Mr. Courtney, after taking counsel with his parliamentary friends, made an important change in the conduct of his measure. It had hitherto been brought forward as a bill, which, if passed, would have made the actual change desired in the law; as the parliament was now verging towards its close, it was thought wiser to test the opinion of the House by bringing the question forward in the form of a resolution. Two purposes were served by this change: one was that many men who were in favor of the principle of women's suffrage had objected to it when brought forward as an isolated measure of reform involving a large addition to the constituency, and possibly therefore a new election; the other was, that the time for discussion of a private member's bill is very limited. On Wednesdays, when such bills come on, the House only sits in the morning, and the debate must be concluded at a quarter before six, while the forms of the House afford greater facilities for discussing and voting upon motions. Mr. Courtney in a clear and exhaustive speech moved his resolution as follows:
That in the opinion of this House it is injurious to the best interests of the country that women who are entitled to vote in municipal, parochial and school-board elections when possessed of the statutory qualifications, should be disabled from voting in parliamentary elections, although possessed of the statutory qualifications, and that it is expedient that this disability should be forthwith repealed.
The debate was animated, but the result on division was much the same as before: 113 (including tellers and pairs, 144) voting for it, and 217 (with tellers and pairs, 248) against it. Thus closed the ninth parliament of Victoria, as far as women's suffrage was concerned.
The steady perseverance and unflagging courage of the devoted band of men and women had achieved victories at many points along the line of attack.[545] Every suffrage meeting was the means of gaining converts. The agitation for the suffrage kept the memory of women's wrongs and grievances fresh before the public mind. These years saw the medical profession legally thrown open to women, and facilities given them in school and hospital for obtaining that education which had been hitherto sought abroad. Pharmacy no longer excluded them. London University opened its gates. The Irish Intermediate Education bill, in 1878, which was originally introduced for boys only, was, after several energetic discussions, widened, so as to include girls. Women began to be elected as poor-law guardians. A Scotch Married Women's Property bill was passed, which was a great improvement on the former law. A Matrimonial Causes Amendment act was also carried, which enables magistrates to grant a judicial separation to wives who are brutally treated, along with a maintenance for their children. Some of our friends regretted that these side issues should absorb the time of those who might otherwise have been working exclusively for suffrage; but this was a short-sighted fear. By broadening the basis of work, by asking simultaneously for better laws, better education, better employments and wider fields of usefulness, the sympathies of more women were engaged; while underlying and supporting all was the steady agitation for the suffrage with its compact organization of committees, meetings, publications and petitions which kept parliament awake to the fact that though still disfranchised, women had claims which it could not afford to ignore.
This was a time when the agitation for the suffrage had apparently reached a stationary condition, neither advancing nor receding, in which it was destined to remain for some years longer. Other causes, as the abolition of West Indian slavery and the corn laws, have had a similar period of apparent torpor succeeding the first activity. Justin McCarthy in his "History of our own Times," says: