Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/206

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198
THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT

institutions nor the violent putting back of causes and questions that had matured. The women have voted in almost the same numbers, in proportion, as the men; and in the last New Zealand elections the women voted quite as heavily as the men. While their legislation has been along well-marked lines, their influence, as is natural, has been felt most in questions of purely domestic concern; but they have not been unmindful of larger interests, as the Commonwealth resolution points out.

It is good to reflect that a large number of eminent men all over the world are holding out friendly hands to the women and bidding them welcome as comrades. In this country the number of great men who support the claim of the women is exceedingly large—men in every rank and station of life. The names of some of these have been quoted, but the names of only a very few. The suffrage question cuts through the ordinary political party divisions, and so the grateful spectacle is presented of leaders in politics, in every quarter of the House of Commons, supporting woman suffrage.

Mr Asquith is a well-known opponent, but Mr Lloyd George is a stalwart friend. He has said in his own eloquent fashion: 'About half the students who come up to receive their degrees won in science and in