oman's Suffrage League.

"England is the storm center of our movement," declared the President of
the International Woman's Suffrage Alliance in the Amsterdam Congress.
This was the conviction of the Congress, which therefore resolved to hold
the next International Woman's Suffrage Congress in London (in April,
1909). The fact is undisputed that the English suffragettes--whether one
favors or opposes their actions--have made Great Britain the center of the
modern woman's rights movement. England is a European country, an old
country with rigid traditions, which, nevertheless, are the freest
political traditions that we have in Europe to-day. For fifty years the
English women have struggled for the right to vote. In spite of the fact
that their country has neither Salic Law nor continental militarism (two
of the greatest obstacles to all woman's rights movements), the English
women have not as yet attained their ends. This is an indication of the
tenacity of the prejudices against women in the countries of older
civilizations.

The opposition offered to the political emancipation of women in England
is all the more remarkable since the English women were able to exercise
the right to vote on an equality with men in national elections till 1832,
and in municipal elections till 1835.[32] To that time we find the same
conditions prevailing in England as prevailed in the nine American
commonwealths previous to 1783. This parity of circumstances is explained
by the English principle of representation: _no taxation without
representation_. In 1832 and 1835, however, the English women, who as
taxpayers were qualified to vote, had the right to vote in national and
municipal affairs taken from them; for the word "persons" the expression
"_male_ persons" was substituted in the election law. When this
disfranchisement took place none of those concerned cried out against it.
For two hundred years the women had made no use worth mentioning of the
right to vote. But a part of the women, especially those of the liberal
and cultured circles, saw the significance of this retrograde step.

The political struggles of general concern during the following period
(such as the antislavery movement and the anticorn-law movement) furnished
these women an opportunity to educate themselves in political affairs,
and, like the American women of that time, they in many cases learned
their political ABC by means of the same questions. Such men as Cob