Page:The Woman Socialist - Snowden - 1907.djvu/106

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CHAPTER XIII

WOMAN AND THE STATE

I do not wonder at what men suffer; I wonder at what men lose.” And Ruskin was not alone in his amazement. Surely if the country realised what it loses by shutting out of its high offices its women, it would hasten to remedy the appalling fault!

Only since the year 1865 have women been permitted to vote at municipal elections, and to this day they may not submit themselves for election to these bodies. For County Councils they may vote, but they may not yet be members. School Boards, on which they were permitted to sit, have been abolished, and they may have no part as elected persons in the work of the present Education Committees. They may sit on District and Parish Councils, and be Guardians of the Poor. Very occasionally they are appointed on Royal

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