That although this proposal had never been of a party character, it had always been a political question. There was no question connected with the franchise which had been more thoroughly discussed, threshed and sifted. Guided by every consideration of justice and fairness, of equity, of analogy and experience, he should give it his cordial and unhesitating support.
The next speech of importance was Mr. Stansfeld's. He maintained that the acceptance of the clause by the government would have strengthened rather than weakened the bill, and that its insertion certainly would not have rendered the bill less palatable to the House of Lords:
The principle of this bill is household suffrage. Household suffrage is one of two things—it is either put as a rough test of capable citizenship, or else it means what I will call the family vote. The women to be enfranchised under this clause would be first of all women of property, intelligence and education, having a status in the country; secondly a large class of women of exceptional competency, because having lost the services and support of men who should be the bread-winners and the heads of families, they are obliged to step into their shoes and to take upon themselves the burdens and responsibilities which had previously devolved upon men, and because they have done this with success. I decline either by word or deed to make the admission that these women are less capable citizens than the 2,000,000 whom the right honorable gentleman proposes to enfranchise by this bill. Well, then, let it be the family vote—that is to say, exceptions apart, let the basis of our constitution be that the family, represented by its head, should be the unit of the State. Now that is the idea which recommends and has always recommended itself to my mind. But on what principle, or with what regard to the permanence and stability of that principle, can you exclude the head of the family and give that family no voice, because the head happens to be a woman? If this clause be excluded from the measure, as it will be, this will not be a bill of one principle, but of two principles. It will not be a bill containing only the principle of household suffrage interpreted as the family vote, but one founded on these two principles—first, a male householding vote; and, secondly, the exclusion of the head of the household when the head is a woman. That is a permanent principle of exclusion, and therefore the bill with this clause left out is a declaration for ever against the political emancipation of women.
After some speeches against the motion Colonel King-Harman said:
In the old state of the franchise it was not so much a matter of importance to women whether they possessed votes or not, but now that this bill proposed to create two million new voters of a much lower order than those now exercising the franchise, it became of importance to secure some countervailing advantage. They were told this was a matter which could wait. What were the women to gain by waiting? They had waited for seventeen years during which the subject had been discussed, and now they were told to wait till two million of the common orders had been admitted to a share in the parliamentary management of the country. The honorable member for Huddersfield (Mr. Leatham) had used an argument which he (Colonel King-Harman) thought a most unworthy one, namely, that the franchise was not to be extended to women, because, unhappily, there are women of a degraded and debased class. Because there were 40,000 of them in this metropolis alone, the remaining women who were pure and virtuous were to be deprived of the power of voting. But would Mr. Leatham guarantee that the 2,000,000 men he proposes to enfranchise shall be perfectly pure and moral men? Would he propose a clause to exclude from the franchise those men who lead and retain in vice and degradation these unfortunate women? No—men may sin and be a power in the State, but when a woman sins not only is she to have no power, but her whole sisterhood are to be excluded from it. He believed that every idea of common sense pointed to the desirability of supporting the amendment, and he therefore had great pleasure in doing so.
There were also excellent speeches from Mr. Cowen (Newcastle), General Alexander, Sir Wilfred Lawson and Mr. Story, and finally from Sir Stafford Northcote the leader of the Conservative opposition. He observed:
That the prime minister had told them that they did not consider this clause to be properly introduced now, because this was not the time for the question. It seemed to him, on the contrary, that it was the very best opportunity for dealing with it, because they were going enormously to increase the electorate, and would, therefore, make the inequality between men and women much greater than it was before. It would be said they were going to extend the property franchise if this amendment were carried. On that issue they were prepared to join and to maintain that it was a right thing, and it was the duty of that House to make proper provision for those classes of property holders now without a vote. Members who had canvassed boroughs would remember that after going into two or three shops and asking for the votes of those who were owners, they have come to one perhaps of the most important shops and have been told, "Oh, it is of no use going in, there is no vote there." Such women are probably of education and gentle character, and perhaps live as widows and take care of their families; they have every right to be consulted as to who should be the man to represent the constituency in which they lived and to take care of their interests and the interests of those dependent on them. That was the ground on which Lord Beaconsfield stood. They had adhered to that ground for several years, and there they stood now.
The division took place at a late hour with the result that the clause was defeated by 271 votes to 135, being a majority against it of 136, or two to one. But though such a vote would have been a sore discouragement if it had represented the real opinion of the House, on the present occasion it meant little if anything. The government had sent out a "five-line" whip for its supporters, and so effective had this whip been, combined with Mr. Gladstone's assertion that he would give up the responsibility of the bill if the clause were carried, that 98 Liberals and 6 Home Rulers, known to be supporters of our cause, voted with the government, even Mr. Hugh Mason being among this number, while 34 Liberals and 7 Home Rulers, also friends of ours, were absent from the division. We may safely assume that had the government more wisely left it an open question, upon which members were free to vote according to their consciences, our defeat would have been turned into a victory. On the other hand while our Liberal friends thus voted against the amendment or abstained from voting, the bulk of our supporters in this division were Conservatives, a circumstance unknown in the previous history of the movement.
An important conference of friends and supporters was held the next morning in the Westminster Palace Hotel at which Mr. Stansfeld presided. To use Miss Tod's words: