WOMEN’S FRANCHISE AGE LIMIT OF THIRTY ANOTHER LARGE MAJORITY

The Home Secretary had a surprise for the House of Commons yesterday when he came to state the Government’s view of the amendment proposing to do away with the age limitation in connection with the grant of Woman’s Suffrage. He said that it was an amendment against the whole bill, and, therefore, must be resisted. If it were passed, the Government would have to reconsider the new position, and he for one could no longer be responsible for the conduct of the bill. This killed the amendment stone dead, as was shown by the figures of the division, 291 to 25. The Government’s declaration caused annoyance in some quarters, but not – speaking generally – among the friends of Woman’s Suffrage. Those who were angriest were they who on the previous evening had voted against women having the vote at all. They said that the Government had no right to have any view on the amendment, because they had promised to leave the whole question of Woman’s Suffrage to the free decision of the House. Not so, was Sir George Cave’s reply; all they had left free wore certain strictly definite proposals. But Colonel Sir Robert Williams would not have it so, and to show his indignation – which rendered him not indeed speechless but almost inarticulate – he wanted to move the adjournment of the House. “Can’t be done,” said the Chairman. “Then to report progress,” said the member for West Dorsetshire. But Mr. Whitley scoffed at the idea. Why shouldn’t the Government have a view of their own, he asked, and why should not the Home Secretary disclose it? The convinced Woman’s Suffragists were very suspicious of the new-found zeal of the “Antis” to throw open the welcoming doors as wide as possible. Sir Henry Craik’s voice grew lyrical over his enthusiastic young women graduates of Glasgow and Aberdeen; surely, he said, they ought to have a vote rather than their elder sisters, who had sunk down into the anxious cares or placid joys of married domesticity. Major Hunt candidly hoped that to if women were to come into Parliament there might be “some young ’uns” among the number. Mr. Maccallum Scott thought the limitation was “not democratic” – he rarely gets further than that. Mr. Peto wanted something a bit more logical and with a greater quality of permanence. Sir Charles Hobhouse and Sir Frederick Banbury were for treating men and women absolutely alike, once you granted the franchise to women at all. An innocent spectator might have thought that the House was in a mood to make full and free surrender of the last vestige of masculine privilege. But others know better, and Mr. Charles Roberts, Mr. Dickinson, and Sir John Simon earnestly warned their friends not to listen to the voice of the tempters, but to reject the proffered gifts. The one exception among those who supported the amendment was Lord Hugh Cecil. But he, though an eager Suffragist, is even more eager to wreck the whole Bill. He ridiculed the idea of age as a limitation. It was irrational, and something more than irrationality was required to prove wisdom. That may be true. But the noble lord forgets that more than the logic on which he prides himself is also wanted to prove the same quality. Lord Hugh Cecil would like to abolish the age limitation, but at the same time he would disallow the vote to women in respect of their husbands’ occupation franchise on the Local Government register. In other words, as Mr. Dickinson pointed out, his real aim was to enfranchise not 6.000,000 women, but just the 1,000,000 women of the old Conciliation Bill. Lord Hugh Cecil finds his true logical limitation in property, and thinks that that would prove more lasting than a limitation of age. It is one of his darling delusions. Mr. Dickinson’s speech in favour of the age limitation was admirably argued. It was of the essence of the compromise, he said. If it were altered, no one could say what would happen. He was in favour of adult suffrage, and would not be afraid of admitting ten, twelve, or even fourteen million women to the register, but he recognised the strength of the arguments against such wholesale enfranchisement, and could not say that they were unreasonable.