m of
all war, is peace. Now the Suffragettes cannot raise civil war in
this soldierly and decisive sense; first, because they are women; and,
secondly, because they are very few women. But they can raise something
else; which is altogether another pair of shoes. They do not create
revolution; what they do create is anarchy; and the difference between
these is not a question of violence, but a question of fruitfulness and
finality. Revolution of its nature produces government; anarchy only
produces more anarchy. Men may have what opinions they please about
the beheading of King Charles or King Louis, but they cannot deny that
Bradshaw and Cromwell ruled, that Carnot and Napoleon governed. Someone
conquered; something occurred. You can only knock off the King's
head once. But you can knock off the King's hat any number of times.
Destruction is finite, obstruction is infinite: so long as rebellion
takes the form of mere disorder (instead of an attempt to enforce a new
order) there is no logical end to it; it can feed on itself and renew
itself forever. If Napoleon had not wanted to be a Consul, but only
wanted to be a nuisance, he could, possibly, have prevented any
government arising successfully out of the Revolution. But such a
proceeding would not have deserved the dignified name of rebellion.

It is exactly this unmilitant quality in the Suffragettes that makes
their superficial problem. The problem is that their action has none of
the advantages of ultimate violence; it does not afford a test. War is
a dreadful thing; but it does prove two points sharply and
unanswerably--numbers, and an unnatural valor. One does discover the two
urgent matters; how many rebels there are alive, and how many are
ready to be dead. But a tiny minority, even an interested minority, may
maintain mere disorder forever. There is also, of course, in the case of
these women, the further falsity that is introduced by their sex. It is
false to state the matter as a mere brutal question of strength. If his
muscles give a man a vote, then his horse ought to have two votes and
his elephant five votes. The truth is more subtle than that; it is that
bodily outbreak is a man's instinctive weapon, like the hoofs to the
horse or the tusks to the elephant. All riot is a threat of war; but the
woman is brandishing a weapon she can never use. There are many weapons
that she could and does use. If (for example) all the women nagged for
a vote they would ge