us, inasmuch as it
exists only in respect to the parliamentary franchise. The
electoral rights of women have been from time immemorial equal
and similar to those of men in parochial and other ancient
franchises, and in the year 1869 a measure was passed, with the
sanction of the administration of which you are the head,
restoring and confirming the rights of women ratepayers to the
exercise of the municipal franchise.

The electoral disability is further anomalous, because by the law
and constitution of this realm, women are not disabled from the
exercise of political power. Writs, returning members to serve
in the House of Commons, signed by women as electors or returning
officers, are now in existence, and the validity of such returns
has never been disputed. Women who were heirs to peerages and
other dignities exercised judicial jurisdiction and enjoyed other
privileges appertaining to such offices and lordships without
disability of sex. The highest political function known to the
constitution may be exercised by a woman. The principle that
women may have political power is coeval with the British
constitution. On the other hand the practice of women taking part
in voting at popular elections is equally ancient in date, and
has been restored and extended by the action of the present
parliament. Your memorialists therefore submit that to bring the
existing principle and practice into harmony by removing the
disability which prevents women who vote in local elections from
voting in the election of members of parliament, would be a step
in the natural process of development by which institutions,
while retaining the strength and authority derived from the
traditions of the past, and preserving the continuity of the
national life, continually undergo such modifications as are
needed in order to adapt them to the exigencies of the age and
the changed conditions of modern life.

They also submit that the old laws regulating the qualifications
of electors do not limit the franchise to male persons; that the
laws under which women exercised the parochial franchise were
couched in the same general terms as those regulating the
parliamentary suffrage, and that while the latter were not
expressly limited to men, the former were not expressly e