THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN PARLIAMENT
On December 1st, 1919, in London deep darkness covered the land. A
dull morning gave place to a mid-day of Stygian gloom, and the members
of the House of Commons, as they ate their lunch, looked out on to an
inky stream reflecting an inky sky. Had the citizens of London been
intellectually as benighted as they were atmospherically, they might
have run to bow themselves in frenzy before the images of Gog and
Magog, beseeching them, amid the smoke of sacrifice, to turn away their
wrath. And had some wily and reactionary priest of these divinities
arisen to harangue the people, saying: "Brethren, wherefore do you beat
your breasts and offer sacrifices rather than seek out the cause of
your offence? The gods indeed are wroth, seeing that ye set at nought
the divine laws. Even now at Westminster the unlawful thing is being
done: the distinction which they in their wisdom have set between man
and woman is being impiously flouted. For this the gods frown, for
this the sun’s light is put out, giving promise of greater evils to
come"—if he had said such words as these, a crowd of primitive citizens
might have rushed from the city to Westminster and prevented, had they
been strong enough, the reception of a woman into the assembly of the
people.
As it was, no such thing happened. The atmospheric gloom was accepted
philosophically as evidence of a deep depression, not on the part
of the gods, but of the barometer in the Atlantic, a peaceful crowd
gathered in Whitehall to witness what the evening papers would describe
as “the scenes” at Westminster, and the Members of the House of
Commons finished their lunches and asked their questions undisturbed.
Even though the attendance in the House was large, to an unprejudiced
observer in the gallery what occurred seemed, as I have been told,
quite ordinary. It was almost impossible, at the moment when Mr Lloyd
George and Mr Balfour—after a false start—walked to the table with
Lady Astor in their midst, to focus the mind upon the revolution in
thought and feeling which this event, divided by so few years from that
distressing siege of St Stephen’s by wild and dishevelled women, really
represented. The first lady member took her seat, and it appeared the
most natural thing in the world, particularly as she had so cleverly
devised her parliamentary costume as to blend completely with the
hundreds of dark coats and white collars that surrounded her. Had she
arrived in a “confection,” the contrast, the new element, would have
been immeasurably accentuated.
The contrast, the new element, was there, however, though not where
people were looking for it. It was faint, almost imperceptible,
fleeting as a thought: yet, to the mind of my philosophic informant,
it stood for more than the previous old-fashioned ceremony. After
her formal introduction, the new member passed round the division
lobby to the door of the House opposite the Speaker. My parliamentary
philosopher, coming down at this moment from the gallery, was met,
all suddenly, by the new thing for which he had vainly looked five
minutes earlier. The new element, or rather its symbol, was there in
that lobby, but so attenuated that at first it eluded description;
but the philosopher’s nose followed its clue as surely as the First
Secretary’s in the last act of “Diplomacy.” It was the faintest breath
of a perfume, just the thinnest ghost of a delicate scent, but a scent
quite beyond the inspiration of a masculine barber. Thus the air of the
division lobby, which, sucked as it is from the river, had borne many
strange odours wafted from passing barges, knew an element to which,
of all the lobbies, this innermost one had ever been a stranger. This
was the symbol which truly represented the revolution, though on its
actual physical essence he laid no stress: it may have been a sheer
illusion. The ceremony of “taking her seat” was only an old formula
applied without alteration to a new phenomenon: this elusive breath was
the symbol of a new thing applied to an old institution.
From this symbol I take my point of departure in this chapter. The
newspapers spent at the time much space and ingenuity in commenting
on chance incongruities which might arise if the old rules of
parliamentary procedure were applied rigidly to a woman member: this
was amusing matter enough for gossip, but of no importance. The
only question of interest is in what really consists the novelty at
Westminster and in all the political life of our country which has been
begun by the presence of a woman on the green benches. It is not, in
the narrow sense, a political novelty, but something far wider which
affects, or may affect, all English men and women.
There are women who seem now as anxious to obscure the fact of the
novelty as they were to bring it to pass. If I might believe a lady
novelist with whom I discussed the matter not long ago, the thing
to rejoice over is that Lady Astor was adopted and elected as an
ordinary party candidate, not primarily as a woman, as a nominee
of some women’s party or as champion of some women’s programme. On
this view, as I understand it, the winning of full political rights
for women, having removed the greatest and most unfair of all the
differentiations between the two sexes, leaves them now blended into
one both as electors and potential candidates, as if this were a
possible, natural or desirable consummation. It is, of course, a quite
intelligible point of view, when the mass of stupidity against which
it is a protest is considered. Women have suffered so much from the
fact of their sex—though they have been inclined to underestimate its
privileges and its powers even in the unregenerate days—that they
may be excused if the last thing that they wish is to insist on it
in the field of politics. Nobody can blame Englishwomen for wishing
to come into the arena, as far as possible, unprejudiced, and to be
regarded just as citizens, and not, in any sense, as freaks. Obviously,
too, it would be impolitic on their part, at the first moment of the
innovation, before they have found themselves or gained experience in
the new sphere of action, to lay any stress on any kind of antagonism
which might exist between them and the sex which has hitherto been
in exclusive possession of that sphere. They would rather slip in
unobtrusively in their dark coats and skirts and white collars, as not
too conspicuous political animals, evading reporters and writers of
paragraphs, making no parade of their special feminine experience, but
trusting to opportunity to use it; making, also, no special appeal that
a man could not equally make, until the novelty has so worn off that
their candidature and their election shall become too common to provoke
comment.
Let them do so by all means, but that elusive symbol in the division
lobby cannot be ignored. Their idea, so long as it is protective of
their best interests is legitimate: it will be impossible for them
to take their proper share in politics so long as they are regarded
as freaks, and, whether or no a time will ever come when a women’s
party must of necessity arise, it would be foolish now to forestall
necessity. A party crystallises common ideals, which, at this moment,
the women of England have not got either by tradition or conviction.
Yet the fact remains that women are women, and not men. Is it right,
is it even possible, that this should be ignored or disregarded in
politics, when it is patent,—usefully, inexorably, so—in all other
social activities? With all respect to ladies who take another view,
I submit that it is neither possible nor desirable: perhaps I may
persuade them that my view, where it is not supported by plain facts,
is not a fruit of masculine prejudice and does not aim at nullifying
the good of their well-earned enfranchisement, but is really a greater
tribute to the value of their appearance in politics than they seem
ready to pay themselves.
In all probability, men being more active, more politically ambitious
and more in a position by their public activities to gain suffrages
than women, the proportion of women to men among members of Parliament
will always be small. For this very reason it seems important that
this small proportion should get the best out of itself, which it will
not do by disregarding its sex. Perhaps it is not the sex so much that
matters as the special experience and outlook which are incidental
to it. The woman’s point of view may not always be the most just or
the most comprehensive, but it will always be valuable when clearly
stated. A woman, even from her earliest years, learns to penetrate into
recesses of life which defy the penetration of the less supple man: she
sees into other minds from a different angle and, where the minds are
women’s, from a much more advantageous one. In the ordinary course
of life in England the woman’s path begins to diverge from the man’s
immediately the confines of babyhood are passed, and, though women will
be right to annex for themselves anything that is valuable in masculine
upbringing and to press for complete equality of opportunity with men,
it is hardly possible that the two paths will ever coincide. It is
scarcely conceivable that the mind of a woman should ever take on so
completely masculine a form that she will not, by feminine contacts
and sympathies, have gathered some experiences beyond the reach of
a man. I cannot see why political should differ from social life in
this respect. Each of a normal married couple brings some special
contribution to the common household: every sensible man leaves some
things to his wife as she leaves others to him: and though members of
Parliament cannot so absolutely divide the range of their activities,
there is no reason why any special qualifications should be left in the
cloakroom because they were not specifically included in the issue of
a particular election. We want the woman’s point of view in politics,
for men will be saved from many grave mistakes by the knowledge of it.
That it should always be paramount is not to be expected, but, seeing
the English talent for compromise, its recognition would not fail
to affect the consideration of any question which brought it forth.
The whole of our social life is now undergoing a profound process of
modification: it is not easy to realise the depth of this process as it
goes on its slow, uneven course from day to day. Now, if ever, there
is a great part for women to play as women, not only as members of a
political party: women should be watching, advising, and taking an
interest, so that the result of the process may be as successful as the
best wills and minds of this country can make it.
Therefore, women as electors should be as little deterred from
expressing their own point of view as women members. They need not
found a women’s party to do this. They have only to take advantage of
their voting power and to make it a real force in every constituency.
They will not do this in a moment, for the Englishwoman is more
apathetic politically even than the man, and her opinion less educated.
She will have to learn to scrutinise public questions as carefully as
she does domestic ones and to make her conclusions heard as clearly
out of the home as in it. The addition of so many million women to the
parliamentary register should be something more than the addition of
so many million electors. It is not an unmixed blessing, for women
have their special faults as well as men, but these faults can be
compensated for if the valuable qualities of women are also put into
the scale. If Englishwomen are to have political power, it is well that
they should learn how to use it, and if women members are a valuable
leaven at Westminster, the quantity of that leaven depends largely upon
the women electors. We need not be too afraid, I think, that political
activity of this kind would bring about a regrettable conflict between
the sexes. One might as well be asked to believe that husband and
wife inevitably come into regrettable conflict over the colour of the
drawing room carpet or the best place for the summer holiday. Here,
though there may be a difference of opinion, discussion usually throws
up a satisfactory solution which does justice to two different, but
not in the least antagonistic, interests. In the larger political life
of the nation the same happy solution may be as confidently expected,
even if, in rare cases, the argument reaches the emotional acuteness
of a domestic “scene.” In normal households “scenes,” if they occur,
clear the air; a few tears and a few hard words are better than the
silence of apathy: there seems no reason why the analogy should not
hold collectively. Hope for the best in this matter is all the more
justified in that Englishwomen are by nature peculiarly loyal to
their men: they are far more apt to refrain out of motherliness from
opposing them than to thwart them out of perversity, and more ready to
propitiate their Bills and Toms when they come home tired from work
than to expect a similar attention on their part. If the privilege of
the franchise was conferred on women as a recognition, the privilege
implies duties also, especially the duty of rendering the privilege
valuable to the State. The degree to which Englishwomen, as political
beings, cultivate a tactful independence will be the measure of the
value which they are extracting from the privilege. Besides, women
in public life will protect themselves far more successfully against
the gapes of idle curiosity by developing a large bulk of political
capacity than by trying to merge themselves inconspicuously, but
ignominiously, with the men.
In any case, whether they are convinced or not, they will not succeed
in what lawyers might call the “merger” of the two sexes. My symbol
of the division lobby here tickles the brain conclusively: it may
stand, to the philosopher, for all the emotional current which runs as
inevitably between the two sexes as electricity between the two poles
of a magnet. The granting of full political rights to women has truly
introduced a new element into politics which even the most heartfelt
wish cannot possibly conjure away. This element is the appeal of woman
to man and man to woman which in every degree, from starkest crudity
to most refined subtlety, is present in all human relations of the two
sexes. That force of attraction, on which Henry Adams so brilliantly
and whimsically reflected, is part of that persistent “nature” which
the most assiduous application of the pitchfork will never drive out.
A constituency is but a collection of human beings who bring to all
their preoccupations, politics included, the mental and moral habits
which they have acquired, and members of Parliament, as an observer
at Westminster has infinite opportunity of noticing, are human beings
with all the holes in their logical armour and all the susceptibility
to moral influence and emotional suggestion which is a quality of the
species however civilised. Until they argue by mathematical symbols,
pure thinking in their debates will always be diluted by other
influences. If the influence of women be added, this cannot fail to
have its effect. Why should anyone expect it to be otherwise? Politics
cannot be separated artificially from the rest of life even by the
most sedulous endeavour. Political and social elements in existence
are inextricably mingled. Queen Elizabeth was an effective ruler, but
she showed herself a woman too; the great Empress Catherine and Maria
Theresa did not act politically by the dry light of reason alone; and
who can deny the influence of the current which runs between man and
woman in the political dealings of Queen Victoria, especially with
Lords Melbourne and Beaconsfield? If these great women could not avoid
the influence, it is hardly to be expected that women politicians and
the men with whom they deal politically will avoid it more successfully.
The inevitable introduction, or accentuation in a sphere where it
had hitherto been less marked, of this new element was the one
consideration on which a fair-minded man might have seriously pondered
before making up his mind on the question of votes for women. No
professions or good intentions on women’s part could conjure it away,
and it was to be admitted that it would make for evil as well as
for good. The mutual influence of the sexes may produce the highest
devotion and the loftiest endeavour. Men and women will do for one
another, both individually and in the mass, greater and finer things
than they will do for their own sex alone: they can appeal to each
other’s highest feelings. On the other hand, they can appeal to the
lowest feelings, and the flow of the current, either by attraction
or repulsion, can easily work in such a way as to cause distraction
rather than concentration, irrelevancy rather than logical conclusion.
It might well have seemed, on dispassionate reflection, that there was
already irrelevancy enough in the political life of England. Appeals to
prejudice or mere personalities were common enough without increasing
the strength and range of their appeal. With every recognition of the
logic of the women’s claim, there remained the fear that the woman’s
tendency to take an intensely personal view of questions, her ready
affection by emotional side-issues, the sway which personal antipathies
and repulsions exercise, almost unconsciously, over her mind, and the
quite notorious unscrupulousness with which she will use every possible
feminine appeal to gain over a man against his better judgment, might
be as unfortunate as the influence of her higher qualities would be
valuable. The march of events and of political thought triumphantly
overbore objections of this kind: they could not possibly stem the tide
of great historic necessity. But this tide has not swept facts away:
what was true in such objections remains true still, nor will retorts
on the nature of corresponding masculine failings destroy them. Men,
let it be admitted, are as frail in their way as women, and then let
it be recognised that the influence against which they are most frail
has burst into a region where they were comparatively exempt from it.
There is no disrespect, I feel sure, in reminding Englishwomen, who
are not at all averse from criticising other members of their sex, of
these things. Those of them who recognise the dangers will have the
opportunity of guarding against them by educating the ignorant. It will
be for them, the political leaders of the women, to see that women’s
influence is used to clarify, not to obscure, judgment, to deprecate
the undue intrusion of personal emotions, and to broaden the range of
the woman’s political views beyond her own immediate environment. The
power which they hold in their hands is enormous: they have not yet
learned to use it fully, but they cannot divest themselves of it. The
political future of England depends largely on the manner in which they
handle it.
There is now a lady members’ room in the Palace of Westminster, which
at present has only one occupant. When it has many—and the time may not
be long distant—will it not be a dynamo for the storage of the feminine
current? Its very existence cuts for the first time across the purely
political differences of members within the precincts of the House,
typifying a distinction never before drawn between one member and
another—that of sex. Its effects may not be immediate and resounding,
but there are dormant possibilities there which it would be absurd to
overlook, possibilities of a new energy let loose, of drama, even of
romance. The collective consciousness of the House or of a committee is
extremely susceptible to emotional appeal: it is easily exasperated,
readily smoothed by tact, quickly moved to laughter. It would hardly
be impervious to an appeal, even tacit, to its chivalry. If a man with
a fine appearance and a good voice immediately prepossesses such an
audience in his favour, may we not imagine the case of a beautiful
woman with a melodious voice rising, let us say, from the Treasury or
the front Opposition bench to plead a cause with passion? A crowded
House is an effective background for a speaker from such a position: a
woman, with her sex’s unerring eye for effective pose, would make full
use of it. Would she not project from her whole personality a force
infinitely exceeding that of her mere words and arguments, a force of
which no man would be capable, given a similar audience? There might be
a radiance, a pathos—suppose she ventured a telling sob—an enthusiasm
which, though absent from the pages of the morrow’s Hansard, might
tell strongly enough upon the night’s division. At ordinary times,
it is true, party prepossessions and party whips, as well as logical
convictions, are sufficient safeguards against the effect of irrelevant
appeal: but, when the point is critical, opinions evenly divided,
feeling high, or a government shaking, the smallest thing may turn the
scale. The appeal of a woman to men, used consciously or unconsciously,
at such a time would not be a small thing. It might be so momentary
as to vanish from the ken of history, but it might be decisive. The
requisite combination of circumstances may be long in making its
appearance, but no one can deny its possibility. The oratorical power
of a Fox, a Pitt and a Burke are remembered even now, when their
personalities have vanished and the effect of their very words is no
longer overpowering. If their emotional mastery over a gathering of men
was so great as to outlive their bodies for over a century, surely the
history of future centuries may have to tell of women whose mastery
was transcendent, of some female Pitt, who led a Parliament, or some
new Joan of Arc, who led a nation. Englishwomen and Englishmen may
well ponder all that the future may bring out of that lady members’
room with its now solitary occupant. For good and for ill there is a
new force at Westminster which, like all new forces, looks innocent
enough at the experimental stage, but may yet contain the energy to
revolutionise a world.