6
answer from experience. For that many of the United States and some of the British Colonies had been making experiments in this direction, that none of them had repented or drawn back from what they had done, but on the contrary, all that had taken more than one step, had advanced towards the complete emancipation of married women from the law of forfeiture, and that the evils, plentifully prophesied on the Western as on the Eastern seaboard of the Atlantic, had not yet made their appearance.
Mr. Gurney's Bill.In the session of 1889, a Bill was introduced into the House of Commons by Mr. Russell Gurney, which embodied the principle contended for. It provided in effect, that married women, or at least those married subsequently to the Act, shall be as capable of holding property as single ones. The Bill was referred to a Select Committee, by whom the principle was preserved uninjured. The third reading was carried in the House of Commons by a large majority, but the measure was stopped in the House of Lords, on the ground that its provisions required further consideration.
New phase of the OppositionIt is not my object now to discuss the provisions of the Bill in detail. Indeed I have throughout confined myself to discussing principles. It is because there were some, though uncertain, indications in both Houses that alterations might be proposed, which, though in the form of details, would really defeat the whole measure, that I am anxious to recall attention to the previous stages of the discussion, and to add some observations on the threatened danger. And I am the more anxious to do this, because the alterations in question seem to find favour not only with those who, consenting to change merely because the advocates of change are too strong for them, really hate the Bill, and will substitute a changeling for it if they can, but with some who are sincerely convinced of the evils of the present system, and wish to see a remedy applied to them. Neither do I propose to amplify or add to the arguments contained in the Birmingham paper. It is there stated that I had not the advantage of seeing any detailed or methodical statement of the objections to altering the law. Neither have I now; and I may fairly assume in so contentious a matter, that arguments asked for but not yet adduced do not exist; and that those which have been adduced for the change, and have not been answered, are unanswerable. I wish now to