oman.[156]

In Austria, women who are landed proprietors, or conduct a business, to
which the suffrage is attached, have the right to exercise the privilege
_by attorney_. This holds both for local and Reichstag elections. If the
woman is proprietor of a mercantile or industrial establishment, which
gives the right to vote for the Chamber of Commerce, her franchise must
be exercised by a business manager. In France, on the contrary, a woman
who conducts a business, has a right to vote at the election of members
for the tribunals of commerce, but she cannot herself be elected.
According to the law of 1891 of the old Prussian provinces, women have
the suffrage, if the landed property that belongs to them conveys the
right to vote, nevertheless they must exercise the privilege through a
male representative, neither are they eligible themselves. Likewise
according to the laws of Hanover, Brunswick, Schleswig-Holstein,
Sachsen-Weimar, Hamburg and Luebeck. In Saxony, the law allows women the
suffrage if they are landed proprietors and are _unmarried_. If married,
the woman's vote goes to her husband. In all these cases, accordingly,
the right of suffrage does not attach to persons but to property--quite
a light upon existing political and legal morality: Man, thou art zero
if moneyless or propertyless; knowledge, intellect are secondary
matters. Property decides.

We see that the principle of denying woman the suffrage on the theory of
her not being "of age" is broken through in fact; and yet objection is
raised to granting her the right in full. It is said that to grant woman
the suffrage is dangerous because she yields easily to religious
prejudices, and is conservative. She is both only because she is
ignorant. Let her be educated and taught where her interests lie. For
the rest, the influence of religion on elections is exaggerated.
Ultramontane agitation has hitherto been so successful in Germany only
because it knew how to join _social with religious interests_. The
ultramontane chaplains long vied with the Socialists in uncovering the
social foulness. Hence their influence with the masses. With the close
of the Kulturkampf, the influence of the Catholic clergymen upon the
masses waned. The clergy is forced to discontinue its opposition to the
Government; simultaneously therewith, the rising class struggle compels
it to consider the Catholic capitalist class and Catholic nobility; it
will, accordingly, be compelled to