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7 Women's Suffrage J. 1 (1876)

handle is hein.journals/wmsuffpr7 and id is 1 raw text is: WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE JOURNAL. EDITED BY LYDIA E. BEOKER. VoL. vi.-No. 71. PUBLISHED MONTHLY. JANUARY 1, 1876. PRICE ONE PENNY. REGISTERED FOR TRANSMISSION ABROAD. BY POST THREE I-ALFPENCE. THE meeting of Parliament is fixed for February the 8th, and the New Year's message with which we would greet our friends and subscribers is an earnest exhortation to prepare for a vigorous campaign in support of Mr. FORSYTH's Bill. All political associations are busy pre- paring for the coming session, and if we would hold the ground we have won, we must not be behind the best of them in serious preparation and earnest work in support of the efforts which our Parliamentary leaders make on our behalf. Petition, petition, petition, must still be the burden of our cry; and we ask all who can aid in this essential manner to send at once to the office of this Jowrnal, when they will be supplied with all necessary .material and information. The last month of the year that has just closed has been marked by a signal step in the political progress of the question. The National Reform Union Conference recently held at Manchester, which represents the ad- vanced section of the Liberal party, has formally recog- nised the principle of the right of women citizens to vote in the election of Members of Parliament. In the original draft of resolutions prepared by the committee-to be sub- mitted to the Conference, the principle, though recognised, was not quite unmistakably promulgated. The principle the Conference was asked to adopt was the equality of all citizens before the law, and this was understood to include women citizens. But, when definite resolutions came to be proposed, the scope of this declaration was made clear. The resolution respecting the reform of the representa- tive system recommended as a subject for immediate legislation c: the extension of household suffrage to counties. Miss STURGE, who appeared at the Con- ference as a delegate from the Women's Liberal As- sociation of Birmingham, moved as ar amendment the extension of the suffrage to all householders in counties, with the intention of including women householders, and in this sense the amendment was carried by an over- whelming majority, and afterwards unanimously adopted as a substantive resolution. The significance of this resolution may be estimated from the fact that the Conference consisted of several hundred delegates representing 173 Liberal Associations in 128 towns, and that this great representative body found it impossible to resist the logic of the claim of women citizens, householders, and ratepayers, for the electoral privileges which the household and ratepayer's qualification confers on men. The Women's Suffrage Associations, as such were, of course, not represented at the Conference. They exist for the sole object of obtaining for women who are otherwise legally qualified, the right of voting in the election of Members of Parliament. Their platform is not a party one, and they could not appear at any gathering convened for party purposes. But though the Women's Suffrage Societies are of no party, their principle is one which commends itself to both parties. It recognises the necessity for the further enfranchisement of the people, and is therefore Liberal. But it seeks this extension of enfranchisement strictly on the ancient lines of the Constitution, and is therefore Conservative. In the evening, after the Reform Union Conference, a public meeting was held in the Free Trade Hall, under the presidency of Mr. JACOB BRIGHT, when resolutions were passed approving of the proceedings of the Con- ference, and accepting them as the basis of future action. In proposing the first resolution, Mr. W. S. CAINE pointed out the amendment introduced by Miss STURGE, and explained that it committed the meeting to the principle of giving votes to all householders, both male and female, adding that he was glad the Conference had adopted the resolution as amended, unanimously. Afterwards, in supporting a vote of thanks to the Chairman, Miss STURGE explained that the same principle had been adopted three years ago by the Reform Association of Birmingham, on a resolution proposed by Mr. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAkIN, now their worthy Mayor. Mr. JACOB BRIGHT, in responding to the vote of thanks, said that if he were in the House of Commons again he would give his attention to the weakest in the community, whether the agricultural labourer or those who had been so ably represented by MiS3 STURGE that evening. If he was in the position at all of a representative of these, he gloried in his clients they did not do him any disgrace. If they should come

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