have always had an influential group of Conservative supporters. And it is indicative of the general growth of the movement that among the large majority secured for the second reading of Sir George Kemp's Bill in May 5, 1911, 79 were Conservatives, a number in excess of the total of those who supported Mr. Mill's amendment in 1867. Sir Stafford Northcote (afterwards Lord Iddesleigh) was among the friends of women's suffrage, and so was Sir Algernon Borthwick (afterwards Lord Glenesk), the proprietor and editor of The Morning Post. Support from the Conservative side of the house was greatly encouraged in 1873 by a letter written by Mr. Disraeli in reply to a memorial signed by over 11,000 women. The memorial had been forwarded by Mr. William Gore Langton, M.P., and was thus acknowledged:—
"Dear Gore Langton,—I was much honoured by receiving from your hands the memorial signed by 11,000 women of England—among them some illustrious names—thanking me for my services in attempting to abolish the anomaly that the Parliamentary franchise attached to a household or property qualification, when possessed by a woman, should not be exercised, though in all matters of local government when similarly qualified she exercises this right. As I believe this anomaly to be injurious to the best interests of the country, I trust to see it removed by the wisdom of Parliament.—Yours sincerely,
This was written in 1873 in immediate prospect of the dissolution of Parliament, which took place in February 1874, and placed Mr. Disraeli in power for the first time.
These were days of active propaganda for all the suffrage societies. A hundred meetings were held on the first six months of 1873, a large number for that time, though it would be considered nothing now. All the experienced political men who supported women's suffrage told us that when the 1874 Parliament came to an end a change of Government was highly probable, a new Liberal Government would be in power, and would certainly deal with the question of representation—
