ompel anybody to vote. It is to
give the right to those who _do_ want it--to those signatories of the
second largest petition ever laid on the table of the House of
Commons--to the 96,000 textile workers--to the women who went last month
in deputation to the Prime Minister, and who represented over half a
million belonging to Trades Unions and organized societies. To--perhaps
more than all, to the unorganized women, those whose voices are never
heard in public. _They_, as Mrs. Bewley told you--they are beginning to
want it. The women who are made to work over hours--_they_ want the
vote. To compel them to work over hours is illegal. But who troubles to
see that laws are fairly interpreted for the unrepresented? I know a
factory where a notice went up yesterday to say that the women employed
there will be required to work twelve hours a day for the next few
weeks. Instead of starting at eight, they must begin at six, and work
till seven. The hours in this particular case are illegal--as the
employer will find out!' she threw in with a flash, and one saw by that
illumination the avenue through which his enlightenment would come. 'But
in many shops where women work, twelve hours a day is legal. Much of
women's employment is absolutely unrestricted, except that they may not
be worked on Sunday. And while all that is going on, comfortable
gentlemen sit in armchairs and write alarmist articles about the falling
birth-rate and the horrible amount of infant mortality. A Government
calling itself Liberal goes pettifogging on about side issues, while
women are debased and babies die. Here and there we find a man who
realizes that the main concern of the State should be its children, and
that you can't get worthy citizens where the mothers are sickly and
enslaved. The question of statecraft, rightly considered, always reaches
back to the mother. That State is most prosperous that most considers
her. No State that forgets her can survive. The future is rooted in the
well-being of women. If you rob the women, your children and your
children's children pay. Men haven't realized it--your boasted logic has
never yet reached so far. Of all the community, the women who give the
next generation birth, and who form its character during the most
impressionable years of its life--of all the community, these mothers
now or mothers to be ought to be set free from the monstrous burden that
lies on the shoulders of millions of women. Those of you