.ltVote on woman suffrage The Times, 20 June 1917: parliamentary report MAJORITY OF 330 FOR CHANGE LORD H. CECIL'S WITTY SPEECH WESTMINSTER, TUESDAY The House of Commons tonight accepted the principle of woman suffrage by the overwhelming majority of 330 in a House of 440. In the decisive division, 385 members voted for the change and only 55 against it. It was a free vote of the House. The Government Whips were withdrawn, and two members of the Speaker's Conference, Mr. Dickinson and Sir William Bull, were the tellers for the majority. Among those who voted for woman suffrage were the Prime Minister, Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Asquith, Mr. McKenna, Sir George Cave, Mr. Churchill, Mr. Prothero, Sir John Simon, Lord Robert Cecil, Mr. Long, Mr. Duke, and Sir F. E. Smith. The majority of Ministers, as well as of ex-Ministers, were in the "Aye" lobby. All the Labour members present voted for the change, and Mr. Devlin and other Nationalist members were on the same side. The debate which culminated in this decision was not particularly impressive. It was thoughtful in tone, and there was little of the levity which marred some earlier debates on the subject. Members seemed to realize that the question was no longer an academic one, and that they were called upon at last to vote upon it as a living issue. But a sense of responsibility alone cannot make a House of Commons debate attractive or exciting. Great Parliamentary situations can only spring from embittered passions, novel arguments, fine speaking, or a closely-contested division, with the issue in doubt to the end. None of these conditions was present last night. The result was accepted throughout as a foregone conclusion. The arguments used on both sides were of a familiar kind. The chief orators of the House took no part in the debate. There was no "scene" from beginning to end. It was all very interesting, as marking the end of a long and impassioned political struggle, but it was not the powerful sort of drama which used to be staged at St. Stephen's. It was just plain, sober, honest discussion; with as little sentiment as could possibly be imparted to a subject touching closely the relations of the sexes. SIR F. BANBURY'S ARGUMENTS There was not a large House, even judged by wartime standards, when the Chairman of Committees cleared the road for a straight vote on the principle by ruling out of order Mr. Arnold Ward's amendment to make the adoption of woman suffrage dependent on a referendum. SIR FREDERICK BANBURY was at once called upon to move his amendment, which challenged directly the granting of the Parliamentary vote to any woman, no matter what her age, condition, or occupation might be. On this amendment the House debated the main question for the remainder of the sitting. SIR FREDERICK BANBURY urged three arguments in chief against the proposal to extend the franchise to women at this time. In the first place, the present House had neither the mandate nor any fitness for introducing such a revolution. Secondly, women had not suffered from not having the vote. Lastly, women were constitutionally averse from taking strong action. SIR CHARLES HOBHOUSE seconded the amendment, and based his opposition on what may be called domestic grounds. He insisted that the proposal was based on a totally false conception of what women ought to be asked to do. It was his belief that the capacity of women was best utilized when it was directed to domestic and local activities rather than to external and political considerations. LORD HUGH CECIL made light of this line of argument in a speech which was full of fun and of shrewd thrusts against human prejudice. The experience of the war, he declared, had carried us far beyond the point when it could be soberly maintained that a woman, however foolish, was incapable of the very small mental task involved in giving a vote. He argued that the general relations of the sexes and the general position of women in life would not be profoundly affected by the grant of the franchise to women. Roundly chaffing the extremists on both sides, LORD HUGH CECIL, described them as either pink or white, according to the colour of their complexion as they discussed the question. He then gave a synopsis to a House shaking with laughter of two romances illustrating the opposing points of view. The title of the first romance, written for the extreme suffragists, would be "Saved by the Vote: A Tale of Lawless Love." The author would work it up to the point at which female virtue would be saved by the franchise. The second romance, from the anti-suffragist point of view, would be styled "How Mother Voted; or the Ruined Home." In this case the wear and tear of the franchise would drive the woman into an inebriates' home, where she would only be able to give an absent vote. Lord Hugh Cecil regarded these extreme views as profoundly inaccurate, and cast in his lot with the supporters of woman suffrage. A CANDID MINISTER SIR F. E. SMITH was the first Minister to speak, and he was unusually candid. He confessed that the "physical force" argument, on which he had hitherto relied in his opposition to the change, had been broken down by the war. But he had a much more practical consideration to urge for conversion to woman suffrage. He felt that, whether he opposed it or not, women were going to get the vote. Members laughed at this frank profession. He laid stress on his acceptance of the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference as a whole, and hinted that there might be trouble if proportional representation was not restored. The current was now running strongly in the direction of woman suffrage. SIR JOHN SIMON, in a graceful speech, agreed that the "physical force" argument had gone. As for the war argument, he repudiated, on behalf of women who sought the vote, any claim to a reward for the work they had done in the last three years. What was plain was that the industrial problem would be more than before a women's problem, and the solution could not in justice be attempted by a Parliament with an exclusively male electorate. Towards the end of the debate two Ministers supported the change. SIR ALFRED MOND insisted on the futility of dividing up nations into men and women. Nations, he said, were composed of citizens, and, without the cooperation of its women citizens, a country was helpless. LORD ROBERT CECIL took a similar line. It was his conviction that woman suffrage would make both for good government and the contentment of the people with Government. As the time for the division approached, in a quickly filling House, Mr. ARNOLD WARD made a last effort for the anti-suffragists. He argued the case for a Referendum, denied that the war had caused his party to collapse, and expressed the belief that the overwhelming sentiment in the Army was against the change. At the end of Mr. Ward's speech, a powerful effort which made a considerable impression on the House, the closure was applied, and Sir Frederick Banbury's amendment was heavily defeated. 385 to 55. The result of last night's division on Woman Suffrage was never in the smallest doubt, but it is satisfactory from every point of view that the clause should have been carried by so substantial a majority in a very crowded House. Three hundred and eighty-five against fifty-five are figures which completely dispose of the suggestion that the presence of a few additional Service members would have turned the balance the other way. There is no longer any loophole for denouncing the action of the House of Commons as unconstitutional, in the sense of being unrepresentative, or for supposing that a referendum, whether of men or of women, would reverse it. The case against Woman Suffrage was eloquently maintained to the last moment by MR. ARNOLD WARD, who made the most of a forlorn hope. But it was lost before ever it entered Parliament. Public opinion, manifesting itself in a hundred ways, has set more strongly than ever during the last few months to the side of the suffragists. The world-wide tendency to the widest conception of democracy has swelled it. The suspension of "militant" tactics has given it a chance to develop. Above all, it has been strengthened by the one unanswerable argument that the new position of women in industry will demand such protection in the days of reconstruction as the vote may be held to afford. Beyond all question the change in the attitude of the House of Commons is an accurate reflection of the change in the country at large. .lcIn 1917, parliament voted with a huge majority for Clause Four of the Representation of the People Bill (the Women's Suffrage Clause). The part which women had played in the war was clearly one cause of the change in attitude, though some suffragists felt that the vote should not be given to women merely by way of a thankyou. As ever women thronged the Ladies' Gallery on the day of this critical vote. .llThe Vote: Vindication War and Peace: First world war .ll .lsWR07:WR07_04S WR08:WR08_03S .ls