tion in Massachusetts. Senator Hoar, quoting her as one of the most important women he could name, said that she would "carry to all political questions which her votes would affect quite as wise and safe and intelligent an understanding for their solution as any of her masculine associates in these public functions." But she says: "Women, as a rule, will vote on the side of pure moral issues, but they will also vote for illogical, inexpedient measures to secure some narrow present good which should be outweighed by the larger issues of legal stability, validity of order, constitutional and state rights, which are also involved in the immediate settlement of any question."

Dr. John Todd wrote a book against Woman Suffrage. Gail Hamilton reviewed it with such severity that it was supposed by many that she was in favour of the movement; but when she came to express her own feelings and opinions, she said:

"Without in the least degree impugning motives or decrying the character of Woman Suffragists, I hope that their cause will be unsuccessful in so far as it would impose the ballot upon women. In their desire for the better education of women they have my warmest sympathy, though we might not always agree as to what the better education is. But my earliest instinct and my latest judgment combine in maintaining that women have a right to claim ex

emption from political duty and responsibility, and that men have no right to lay the burden upon them.

"If the public work is ill done by men, the remedy is to do it better, not to shift the weight to shoulders already heavy-laden and whose task they do not propose in any respect to lighten."

"I regret to see women engage in the movement because it indicates a failure to discern the natural place of woman in the order of creation,-the place of eternal superiority and supremacy."

IT

XVI

THREE PHASES

T is said that "Woman Suffrage wherever tried has worked beneficially, so as to secure the approbation of all political parties. Look at the four states in the Union that have legalized Woman Suffrage. Governors, senators, representatives, all commend it. Look at Australia and New Zealand."

The inhabitants of the respective states in Australia and the United States having both male and full female suffrage are so situated as not to have to grap. ple with the problems of vast populations. A traveller unfamiliar with the history of Australia will be astonished at its vastness and the comparative scantiness of its population. In territory it surpasses in extent three-fourths of the whole area of Europe. But Australia, including Tasmania,-though it has grown in some respects faster than did the territory occupied by the United States in a similar period of time,had on the first day of 1908 but 4,197,037 population, only a little more than that of the city of New York and much less than that of London. Such a situation is not one which can afford light upon the problem as to the adaptation of Woman Suffrage to large and congested areas. This is true notwithstanding that South

Australia, Victoria and New South Wales have an unusual proportion of urban population. New Zealand has less than one-tenth of its population in cities. The shortness of the period since Woman Suffrage was introduced in those communities as well as in our own country, also has a strong bearing upon the question.

The testimony of governors, senators, premiers, and of all persons who owe their elevation to elections must be taken with many grains of allowance. The complacency with which legislatures and congresses unanimously praise themselves in speeches and resolutions can hardly be regarded as the best testimony of which the case admits. When a large extension of the suffrage has been granted few candidates for office would dare to declare the extension to be a failure, for they would know that those enfranchised would vote against them; and what is true of a single candidate is true of a party, unless it be sure of a large majority.

This mode of intimidation is already attempted by suffragists. The testimony of public functionaries voluntarily retiring from office, or for various considerations unable or unwilling to become candidates for any office, is frequently very different from that given by those in office hoping to be retained or elevated. Some of the highest of them declare that "Female Suffrage" confers no benefits on the state, and risks great evils. Any class, male or female, the

commendation or condemnation of whose characteristics may be under consideration, contains a majority who would execute vengeance at the polls, if they could, upon those who should venture to denounce them as unworthy of the suffrage.

He who travels in the states having Woman Suffrage and converses with the people indiscriminately will find that many, and sometimes the best citizens, both male and female, declare that no important benefits have been derived by the innovation.

There is also a principle laid down by a distinguished professor of jurisprudence in University College, London, author of "The Science of Law," which should be taken into account when a great experiment in legislation is proposed. He observes that "A bad law, like some poisons when taken into the human system, at once changes the nature of the medium into which it is introduced; and therefore the apparent success of the law may only mean that what in a healthier condition of society would work badly and be resisted, does in a depraved condition of society meet general approval." This means that an experiment so lately introduced, and not where the greatest strain would come, cannot be a model for great nations.

The following is an account of the first trial of Woman Suffrage in the United States :

"On July 2, 1776, the provincial assembly of New