contains people who have joined it for very different motives, and some of the arguments by which it has been defended are mutually destructive. Its greatest achievement in my opinion is that it woke people up and opened their purses, in a way totally unprecedented. It made those who had never cared realise that some women cared intensely, and made them ask why. It made those who had been working for long years realise that there were many yet untried methods, and that some of them were good. Above all, it made many women feel that, if they desired the enfranchisement of women, and if they did not like the methods of the W.S.P.U., the only respectable thing to do was to work as hard, and give as much for what they thought right, as these other women did. To the constitutional suffragists, it is a matter of complete indifference who gets the credit, when the vote is won; but it is a matter of the utmost import to them, not only that the vote should be won, but that both women and men should be prepared to make the best use of so great a reform.
Something can, of course, be done by telling people they are ready. This is what the early militants did. There was no real opposition in the country; there was a very large favourable majority in the House, and there had been a majority since 1886. One can quite conceive a revival which would in a few years have carried mere inertia. What happened was that the W.S.P.U. inflamed a party against the movement, and this party was the
