militants instantly abandoned every sort of violence and organ- ized themselves for public service. They formed a Women's Emergency Corps, ready to undertake all kinds of national work which the exigencies of the time required. Others, both militant and non-militant, in spite of official discouragement undertook the organization of hospital units entirely officered by women (see WOMEN'S WAR WORK). The N.U.W.S.S. committee on Aug. 3 resolved to suspend immediately all political propaganda and to use their staff and organizing power in mitigating the dis- tress caused by the war. Their societies, numbering over 500, were consulted by post, and all but two approved this course.
No one claims for suffrage women that they were in any degree singular in the devoted work which they gave to their country during the war. The suffragists were earliest in the field because they were already organized and accustomed to team-work. Women of all classes and all parties threw themselves with zeal and efficiency into every kind of useful patriotic work. Indus- trial women were beyond all praise, working as they had never worked before, early and late, Sundays and weekdays, to supply the armies with every kind of military equipment. Everyone who came into contact with them bore testimony to their splendid efficiency in departments of skilled work from which before the war they had been rigidly excluded. In March 1915 the Govern- ment concluded an Agreement with the trade unions, known as the Treasury agreement, to suspend during the war, in face of the national emergency, the rules excluding women from most of the skilled trades. The Treasury on its part gave a promise not to use the women as a reservoir of cheap labour, and agreed to give women the same wages as men for the same output. This gave an important stimulus to the principle of equal pay for equal work, and went some way also in the direction of establishing industrial freedom for women. The courage of the women in the dangerous trades was as marked as their .efficiency. On one oc- casion 26 women were killed and 30 injured by an explosion; those who remained uninjured displayed the greatest coolness and discipline, and were prompt both in helping the wounded and in continuing the work of the factory. The legend of the innate timidity of women was thus undermined. The tide in this direc- tion rose so high that even Mr. Asquith was floated by it, and in speaking in Oct. 1915 in the House of the heroic death of Edith Cavell, he said: " She has taught the bravest man among us a supreme lesson of courage; yes, and there are thousands of such women, but a year ago we did not know it."
All through 1916 evidence of the conversion of former oppo- nents of women's enfranchisement poured into the suffrage offices. Many of these conversions were of M.P.s, eminent leaders of the press, railway managers, commercial and financial magnates. Liberals very often pleaded militancy as an excuse for their for- mer blindness; Conservatives, in the main, said simply: " I formerly opposed the granting of the vote to women; I thought men by themselves maintained the state; I was wrong; the women have served their country so magnificently that hence- forth I shall support their having the vote."
There is no doubt that by 1915-6 the country was by a great majority favourable to the enfranchisement of women. Never- theless it would have been impossible to induce Parliament to pass a great Reform bill during the war if it had not been that the electoral position of millions of men, caused by their services to their country, was so anomalous as to amount to a public scandal. The parliamentary register, by the direct orders of the Govern- ment, had not been revised since 1913. By 1916 it was completely out of date. By-elections, had "proved its unrepresentative char- acter and it would have been a moral impossibility to take a general election upon it. There were at this time the names of about 8,000,000 men on the register. Of these nearly 7,000,000 qualified as occupiers. The occupation franchise necessitated that the qualifying premises should have been continuously " occupied " by the voter for 12 months since the last isth July. This meant that a large proportion of the 5,000,000 young men who had voluntarily joined the New Armies since Aug. 4 1914 would, in consequence of their patriotic services, have lost their claim to the parliamentary vote. The men facing death
the very men to whom the country was most indebted, would be voteless, whilst those who had evaded similar sacrifices retained their electoral qualification. The position was intolerable, but it was not at first clear how best to amend it. Proposals were made by some M.P.s to create a new franchise based on naval or military service. But this received little general support. The questions: "Why exclude industrial service?" and "What about the services of women?" received no satisfactory answer. Mr. Asquith's Government repeatedly tried to deal with the situation by Special Register bills. These efforts were unsuc- cessful. Each successive proposal was rejected by the House of Commons with growing symptoms of exasperation. The House wanted a Reform bill,; it demanded a new electorate on demo- cratic lines. The Government wanted a Reform bill too, but appeared to believe they could get one to their liking by calling it a Special Register bill. It was long before they abandoned their efforts to get one thing by calling it another. On Aug. 14 1916 Mr. Asquith, on introducing yet another Special Register bill, announced his conversion to woman suffrage; he based it on the ground that when the war was over it would be necessary to re- vise industrial conditions and that in his view women had a special claim to be heard on the many questions which would directly affect their interests. It was obvious that this was no new condition. Ever since Parliament existed measures had come before it vitally affecting the well-being of women, but on which they had no constitutional means of making their claims heard. But it was not the business of suffragists to point this out. The main difficulty at the moment arose from the plausible plea that, however desirable parliamentary reform might be, it was not the time during the greatest war in history, with the issue still hanging in the balance, to recast the representative system of the country. The reply has just been indicated. The new register and the new qualifications were needed at once unless millions of the most desirable male citizens were to be disfranchised. A good deal of iteration was needed to hammer this into people's heads; and to the end, " This is not the time," continued to be the only effective weapon used against women's enfranchisement.
Mr. Walter (later Lord) Long found a way out of the impasse. He suggested the appointment of a non-party conference, con- sisting of members of both Houses, selected and presided over by the Speaker, to consider the whole subject of electoral re- form including woman suffrage. Mr. Asquith concurred and the House agreed. The conference began its sitting in Oct. 1916 and handed in its report on Jan. 28 1917. In the interval ME. Lloyd George had succeeded Mr. Asquith as Prime Minister, a change very favourable to immediate action in the direction of woman suffrage. The Speaker's conference unanimously recom- mended a new franchise for men amounting practically ,.tp manhood suffrage; for women it recommended, but not unani- mously, household suffrage, including wives of householders, a higher, age-limit for women and their admission to the university franchise. This was the scheme subsequently adopted by Parlia- ment. The object of the high age-limit (30) for women was to produce a constituency in which male voters were in a substan- tial majority. It was believed by suffrage members of the con- ference that the acceptance of this was essential to success. The anticipated proportion of women to men in the new elec- torate was as 2 to 3. This expectation proved practically correct. The new register published in 1919 gave the exact numbers: men 12,913,160; women 8,479,156. It may here be mentioned that the United Kingdom is the only country, out of the 28 where women are 'enfranchised, which created a difference in the qualifications for men and women.
The parliamentary history of the measure based on the recom,- mendations of the Speaker's conference may, as regards woman suffrage, be here sketched. Within a fortnight of his becoming Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George intimated to the leaders of the N.U.W.S.S. that he was keen to go forward at once in the direction of women's enfranchisement. This was a month before the Speaker's conference handed in its report. The object was to get an agreed measure supported by every party in the House. This was achieved. On March 28 1917 Mr. Asquith moved a
