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Jacob Bright in 1870 introduced a "Bill to Remove the Electoral Disabilities of Women" and lost. In 1884 Mr. William Woodall tried again; he lost also, largely through the efforts of Gladstone; and the same statesman was instrumental in killing another bill in 1892, when Mr. A.J. Balfour urged its passage.
And if he form an uncomplimentary opinion of their part in the affair, what moral obligation is he likely to feel as to his own? Politicians are fond of treating it as the dream of enthusiasts that the electoral body will ever be uncorrupt: truly enough, until they are willing to become so themselves; for the electors, assuredly, will take their moral tone from the candidates.
The Minister von Schwarzenberg, the almighty representative of the present Elector, knows this very well, and on this account dreads and hates the Electoral Prince; he has therefore removed him from his father's court in order to take away all influence from him, and he would esteem himself happy if some lucky accident or criminal hand should free him from this inconvenient successor to the throne.
For when women take it into their heads to meddle with politics, then are their hearts always interested; and even in politics, match making is their especial delight. Yes, yes, Count Lesle, I see into it now; you are right. The Electoral Prince is to wed the Palatinate Princess, and the Electress favors this match."
We deprive them of their electoral rights, we withdraw their pensions, we impose on them special taxation, we confine them to their dwellings, we imprison them by thousands, and guillotine them by hundreds; the rest will gradually become discouraged and abandon an impracticable cult.
It was evident that personal character won the electoral suffrage here in the backwoods, and that party feeling had scarce an influence on the voters. The franchise is almost universal throughout Canada. This is with reference to the hundred and thirty representatives in the Lower House of the Provincial Legislature.
For years now he has done yeoman service in the cause, and has corresponded with workers all over the world on the question of electoral reform. I visited Toronto, at the invitation of Mr. William Howland, with whom I had corresponded for years. I was invited to dinner with his father, Sir William Howland, who was the first Lieutenant-Governor of Toronto after the federation of the Dominion.
In a majority of cases, the vote of the electors, whether in opposition to or in accordance with the wishes of their superiors, is not now the effect of coercion, which there are no longer the same means of applying, but the expression of their own personal or political partialities. The very vices of the present electoral system are a proof of this.
"You may be, after all, my old friend," said the Electoral Prince, with a feeble smile. "But what would you say to me? What sort of responsibility have you taken upon yourself?"
And we can leave no possible method of alteration untried. It is not rational that a great people should be baffled by the mere mechanical degeneration of an electoral method too crudely conceived. There exist alternatives, and to these alternatives we must resort.
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