Since the Irish people had been completely conquered, it behoved England
to take such measures as would conduce to the future prosperity of the
island, and at the same time guard against disaffection and rebellion.
There was much consulting and advising. The Irish question was as
prominent as ever. All manner of plans were proposed, but were all in
turn rejected as unfeasible.
After several sessions had been wasted in fruitless debates and in noisy
discussions, whereof the only result arrived at was a certain amount of
forensic display on the part of ambitious members, a proposition was
mooted which at first amazed all who heard it. Then it was ridiculed
unmercifully. Next it was discussed seriously. Finally it was adopted,
amid universal enthusiasm.
For centuries the combined effects of war, seafaring, and emigration had
been to reduce the male population of England to such an extent as to
cause the female portion of the population to preponderate enormously.
So much so, in fact, that not a trade or profession which had hitherto
been regarded by men as sacred to themselves was uninvaded by feminine
competitors, who, considerably to the dismay of adult masculinity, were
steadily proving themselves capable of doing well all that they
undertook to do.
For every man in the community to support three women was an
impossibility, even if he had desired to do so, which he certainly did
not. Women who did not marry were expected to keep themselves. But by
way of showing how strictly and impartially just the male biped can be,
there prevailed a peculiar system of payment, which bore its natural
result of discontent and protest.
For instance, in Messrs. Workemphast’s establishment several women were
engaged as assistants. They performed their work more neatly and deftly
than their masculine rivals, but were paid only half as much for their
services, simply because they were women. The result in all such cases
was that other expensive men were ousted to make room for some more
underpaid women, the consequence being that none but the employers were
satisfied.
The men had an idea that although it was only right that woman should
not be a burden on man, she had no business to invade his particular
province of labour. The women, on the other hand, considered themselves
entitled to equal pay with the men, provided their work was equal.
On other grounds, too, they had ample cause for complaint. Women
householders were compelled to pay quite as heavy rates and taxes as
men, but were debarred from every privilege to which equal payment of
tribute morally entitled them. Although made to provide the necessary
funds for governing the country, they were not merely debarred from
holding office, but were even prohibited from having a voice in the
election of such members of the favoured sex as aspired to be the rulers
of the land.
A woman might pay a large share of her income towards the expenses of
the Government. She might employ a dozen servants, such as gardeners,
grooms, coachmen, gamekeepers, etc., but although each of the men
dependent upon her for a livelihood, no matter how stupid, ignorant, or
loutish they might be, was accorded the privilege of voting, their
clever, accomplished mistress was considered to belong to an inferior
order of beings, to whom it would be unwise to accord privileges, seeing
that they were not supposed to have sufficient sense to use these
privileges wisely.
Again. Adultery alone on the part of a wife was quite sufficient ground
for a divorce in favour of the husband, but a wife must have a husband
who, in addition to being persistently and openly unfaithful, cruelly
ill-treated her, and took a cowardly advantage of the superiority of
strength he had attained through having systematically deprived woman of
every health-giving recreation, before the law, made by men for the
benefit of men, would afford her relief from her daily tortures.
It is on record that a judge, when a woman was being tried for the
presumed murder of her husband, dwelt with such horror upon the most
dreadful fact that she had been unfaithful to her husband, and proved so
conclusively that a woman who could be unfaithful was capable of every
crime under the sun, that the jury, remembering that their interests as
husbands must be protected, sentenced the woman to be hanged, although
medical witnesses showed that she could not be a murderess, seeing that
the cause of her husband’s death was a drug of which he was proved to
have been a systematic partaker.
From this it will be argued that purity of living held high rank with
the English. But this was by no means the case, for in the same decade
the rebellion and protests of women were naturally aroused by the
foulest and most disgusting legislation that ever disgraced the land.
This was the State regulation of vice, whereby the most respectable
women were liable to be subjected to brutal indignities, in order that
no precaution might be neglected which would ensure for men complete
immunity from the consequences of systematic libertinism and immorality.
This may sound paradoxical, but it is not the less sickening in its
shameful reality, and serves to show the hollowness and insincerity of
masculine legislators.
It is small wonder that these and other crying evils brought forth the
fruits they did. Systematic injustice roused the antipathy of women who,
besides having sense enough to argue their own case, had sufficient
moral courage to brave the animadversion which was levelled at them by
the arrogant idiots of the one sex, and the unreasoning imbeciles of the
other.
Hence the expressions which we come across at times, which to modern New
Amazonians unacquainted with history are unintelligible, but which had
their own bitter meaning at the time they were in use. “Bluestocking”
was a term of opprobrium levelled at women who strove to improve their
moral and intellectual status by means of study. A “Woman’s Rights’
Advocate” was described as an individual who was the fit butt for the
laughter and derision of the rest of the community.
To be strong-minded was a wonderful claim to respect in a man. Men were
fond of speaking of women as the “weak-minded,” and, therefore, inferior
sex, and yet the moment a woman proved herself to be not _weak_-minded
but _strong_-minded, she was regarded as an anomaly, and sneered at as a
being who had unsexed herself. To be “only a woman” was equivalent in
the minds of many male egotists to being only “something better than his
dog, and something dearer than his horse,” and yet, no sooner did she
prove herself gifted with abilities hitherto cherished as exclusively
masculine, and, therefore, infinitely superior to womanly attributes,
than she was said to have become “masculine,” and regarded as an object
of horror. To be a woman was to be one unit of a despised race, and yet
to “unsex” herself was one of the most opprobrious faults of which a
woman could be guilty!
Could anything be more idiotic or paradoxical? And is it to be wondered
at that it became necessary for men to _prove_ their vaunted
superiority? And that they were gradually impelled, from sheer fear of
the future, to grant the demands of the sex which was rapidly learning
to estimate itself at its true value?
No struggle recorded in history can compare with the fight against
oppression which was now carried on by the brave and noble ancestresses
of whom we have such good reason to be proud. Many and disheartening
were the defeats they endured, but gloriously triumphant was their final
victory, of which our existence as an independent nation was the
outcome.
Universal Suffrage! Wonderful was the jubilation when it became an
accomplished fact. And wonderful were its effects upon the nation. All
the anomalies above described were wiped away, and women showed
themselves so much more just, and so much more capable of governing than
men, that they invariably enacted none but strictly fair and impartial
regulations.
Thus Boards of Guardians consisted of an equal number of women and men.
The latter superintended many details as formerly, but were relieved
from the sole responsibility of seeing after the babies’ feeding
bottles, and the mothers’ needs, and the old women’s baths, which they
had until now considered their own especial province.
Formerly none but male inspectors were allowed to perambulate the
schools, at the expense of the country, and adjudicate as to the quality
of make, and perfection of cut, of the underclothing for women which the
girls were instructed to prepare for examination. Strange to say, it was
not without considerable opposition that women were admitted to be fit
to usurp this cherished masculine prerogative.
From time immemorial the fact that all doctors were men had proved a
serious calamity, for thousands of women let their infirmities grow upon
them until it was too late to save their lives, simply because they were
reluctant to confide the details of their ailments to members of the
other sex, who in most cases were complete strangers to them. And yet
the universities were for ages shut in the face of women who were
anxious to remedy these evils, and many and hard were the rebuffs and
insults which were endured by the first women who succeeded in removing
all barriers and in passing the examinations which qualified them as
M.D.’s.
Houses were erected on principles which men regarded as perfect, but
which women invariably found to be wofully deficient in matters
appertaining to hygiene and comfort. Since women became architects these
evils were also remedied, and as their augmented influence now
penetrated everywhere, a great change of necessity came over the whole
nation, and paved the way for one of the greatest political events the
world has ever seen.
This was the resolve to colonise Ireland with the women who outnumbered
the men so enormously in Teuto-Scotland.
It was duly remembered that the country had hitherto never managed to
support itself, and that its periodical famines had been a source of
enormous expense to Teuto-Scotland, which even now was voting large sums
for the support of the widows and children of the men who had fallen in
the late disastrous rebellion.
Many debates were, therefore, held respecting the annual amount which
should henceforth be devoted to the maintenance of Teuto-Scottish
authority in Ireland. But careful thought on the part of the greatest
leaders of the colonisation movement resulted in the island being
altogether given up to the sole rule and governance of the chief
colonists. “Home Rule” was the watchword, and it was finally agreed that
a treaty of alliance should be signed, whereby Ireland, or New Amazonia
as it was henceforth called, should maintain friendly relations with the
mother-country, but should be a perfectly self-governing and independent
State, exempt from any allegiance but that of friendliness, and a mutual
desire to prevent the encroachments of foreigners.
In return for so immense a concession, it was stipulated that New
Amazonia should now be self-supporting, and very few but enthusiasts,
remembering the past history of the island, believed in anything but a
total collapse of the new government.
Fortunately for our land, there were vast numbers of enthusiastic
believers in the available resources of New Amazonia, and in the
capacity of its chosen leaders, so that the fifty millions of pounds,
with which it was necessary to be equipped, in order to start the new
enterprise on a sound basis, was raised in a remarkably short time.
Three and a half per cent. consols were issued, and were eagerly bought
up by the enormous numbers of women who desired to become colonists in
the new republic, and to partake of the advantages and opportunities,
which would then be theirs. Great financiers were also found willing to
become partners in this novel syndicate, and as the consols were bought
up in every European country, every European country was directly
interested in the prosperity of New Amazonia, and the spirit and courage
of its leaders was the prominent topic of conversation in the whole of
the civilised world.