which comes third in the classification made in the previous chapter. By educating public opinion through meetings and pamphlets, by promoting Bills in Parliament, and by watching carefully Bills promoted by others, the society seeks to justify the feminist legislation already achieved and to remove the anomalies in the law respecting the status of women in local government.
The history of the progress of women in the matter of local government is an extremely interesting part of a very complicated subject. The law is not the same for every part of the British Islands. In some respects the electoral law for Ireland is more advanced than that of either England and Wales or Scotland. In other particulars Scotland has the advantage. London government differs from them all. And so a proper understanding of the position of the local government voter, male or female, is not very easy.
Prior to the passing of the Municipal Corporation Act in 1886, the local government of the country was conducted in a haphazard way, as the circumstances and conditions of time and place determined. This Act, which deprived women of the Municipal Franchise, was amended many times subsequently, the whole force and intention of these amendments being collected and expressed in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1882, which was further
