To-day I discussed the Women's Movement with my class. They were all
agreed that women should not have votes. I asked for reasons.
"They can't fight like men," said a boy.
I pointed out that they risk their lives more than men do. A woman risks
her life so that life may come into the world; a soldier risks his life
so that death may come into the world.
"Women speak too much," said Margaret Steel.
"Read the Parliamentary debates," said I.
"Women have not the brains," said a boy.
I made no reply, I lifted his last exam. paper, and showed the class his
21 per cent, then I showed him Violet Brown's 93 per cent. But I was
careful to add that the illustration was not conclusive.
I went on to tell them that the vote was of little use to men, and that
I did not consider it worth striving for. But I tried to show them that
the Women's Movement was a much bigger thing than a fight for political
power. It was a protest against the system that made sons doctors and
ministers, and daughters typists and shopgirls, that made girls black
their idle brothers' boots, that offered £60 to a lady teacher who was
doing as good work as the man in the next room with his £130. I did not
take them to the deeper topics of Marriage, Inheritance, the economic
dependence of women on men that makes so many marry for a home. But I
tried to show that owing to woman's being voteless the laws are on the
man's side, and I instanced the Corporation Baths in the neighbouring
city. There only one day a week is set aside for women. Then it struck
me that perhaps the women of the city have municipal votes, and I
suggested that if this were the case, women are less interested in cold
water than men, a circumstance that goes to show that women have a
greater need of freedom than I thought they had.
On the whole it was a disappointing discussion.
* * *
I went up to see Lawson of Rinsley School to-night. I talked away gaily
about having scrapped my Readers and Rural Arithmetic. He was amused; I
know that he considers me a cheerful idiot. But he grew serious when I
talked about my Socialism.
"You blooming Socialists," he said, with a dry laugh, "are the most
cocky people I have yet struck. You think you are the salt of the earth
and that all the others are fatheads."
"Quite right, Lawson," I said with a laugh. And I added seriously: "You
see, my boy, that if you have a theory, you've simply _got_ to think the
other fellow an idiot. I believe in Socialism--the Guild Socialism of
_The New Age_, and naturally I think that Lloyd George and Bonar Law and
the Cecils, and all that lot are hopelessly wrong."
"Do you mean to tell me that you are a greater thinker than Arthur James
Balfour?" Lawson sat back in his chair and watched the effect of this
shot.