country amounts to about L30,000,000, the
imperial expenditure to about L70,000,000 annually; if,
therefore, the matter be regarded as one of taxation only, the
latter vote is of more importance than the former. Local
government deals with men and women alike, and knows no
distinction between male and female ratepayers. But imperial
government deals with men and women on different principles, and
in such a manner that whenever there is any distinction made in
the rights, privileges and protection accorded to them
respectively, the difference is always against women and in favor
of men. They believe this state of things is a natural result of
the exclusion of women from representation, and it will be found
impracticable to amend it until women are admitted to a share in
controlling the legislature.

By the deprivation of the parliamentary vote, women, in the
purchase or renting of property, obtain less for their money than
men. In a bill which passed the House of Commons last session,
provision was made for the amalgamation in one list of the
municipal and parliamentary registers of electors. In that list
it appeared that the same house, the same rent and the same taxes
conferred on a man the double vote in municipal and parliamentary
government, and on a woman the single vote only, and that the
less honorable and important one. When the occupation of a house
is transferred from a man to a woman, say to the widow of the
former owner, that home loses the privilege of representation in
the imperial government, though its relations with the
taxgatherer continue unaltered. There have been various societies
formed with a view to enable persons to acquire portions of
landed or real property, partly for the sake of the vote attached
to such property. Should a woman purchase or inherit such an
estate, the vote, which has been one important consideration in
determining the value, would be lost through her legal disability
to exercise it.

The deprivation of the vote is a serious disadvantage to women in
the competition for farms. A case is recorded of one estate in
Suffolk from which seven widows have been ejected, who, if they
had possessed votes, would have been continued as tenants. A
sudden ejection often means ruin to a family that has sunk