100 Years Ago - Bolshevism; Women's Suffrage

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/lords-vote-for-woman-suffrage-dfh8qrbpz

january 11, 1918

Lords vote for woman suffrage

The House of Lords tonight rejected Lord Loreburn’s amendment to the Reform Bill opening the Parliamentary franchise to women by 134 votes to 71 — a majority of 63. The debate attracted the largest House since the beginning of the war. There were more women than men in the seats allotted to the public, and there has not been such a large attendance of peeresses in the side galleries since the far-off days of party conflict.
The Lord Chancellor, in resuming the debate, said what made him anxious was the possible effect of enfranchising 6,000,000 women for a General Election during the war. There would be a mass of women without political experience upon which pacifists might work.
Lord Selborne followed. The cost of carrying the amendment would involve the rejection of the Bill and, in the climax of the war, would split the nation from top to bottom. In the whole of his political experience no measure had been stamped with such unanimous national approval. He regretted the suggestion of the Lord Chancellor that women would be likely to be a prey to pacifists.

The Archbishop of Canterbury strongly supported the women’s claim. He did not base his case on rewarding women for having done well in the war. It was rather a recognition of the part that women were now taking in our national life. Lord Lytton asked bluntly whether women were to be told again that they must remain in the same category as lunatics and children.

Lord Curzon wound up the debate with a tremendous onslaught on the principle of woman suffrage. He described the proposed change as vast, incalculable, and catastrophic, without precedent in history and without justification in experience. He even ventured on a prediction that before many years were past the influence of women voters would not be Conservative but Socialistic, to the disturbance of home life. He could not conceal that to cut the clause out of the Bill would be a challenge to the House of Commons, and that the House of Lords was not likely to prevail. In these circumstances he proposed to abstain. The division was then taken, and the announcement of the figures was received with a round of cheering — an unusual manifestation in the House of Lords.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/woman-suffrage-and-the-lords-2tv2t6mww

january 10, 1918

Woman suffrage and the Lords

The House of Lords does no more than its duty in discussing at length, and with the authority which always distinguishes its debates, so great a constitutional departure as Woman Suffrage. There were weighty and respected partisans of both sides yesterday, and there will be more today before the division is taken. But it would be a real misfortune, both for the country and for the House of Lords itself, if that division were to result, either through slackness or through perversity, in the temporary suspension of a measure on which the great bulk of the nation are clearly agreed.
Woman Suffrage, in a relatively restricted form, is an essential element in the Reform Bill. It has been carried in the House of Commons by the enormous proportion of seven to one, and, though we are under no illusions about the claim of the present House of Commons to be representative, we have seen nothing whatever to convince us that a poll of the whole country would be any less overwhelming. We believe, in short, that an immense majority of our people have accepted Woman Suffrage since the war, and that they have accepted it for a reason which grows daily more unanswerable.

Writing many months ago, we urged: “that the new case for the woman voter should be thoroughly understood throughout the country. That case rests neither on the triumph of agitation, for agitation has long been stilled, nor on the notion, which every patriotic woman resents, that the vote is a mere reward for good behaviour. It is based wholly on the palpable injustice of withholding such protection as the vote affords from a sex which has for the first time taken its full share in the national effort, and will have sufficient difficulty in any case to maintain the position which it has won.”
The time which has elapsed since those words were written has only served to strengthen the argument and to justify the inclusion of Woman Suffrage in the Bill.
● Lord Loreburn opened the debate by a direct challenge to the principle of giving women the vote. He regarded with anxiety the prospect of feminine influence over foreign affairs and the issues of peace and war, and characterized the proposal as a very dangerous leap in the dark.