ABSTRACT
THE National Women's Suffrage Society, by announcing the subject of its public meeting at St George's Hall, under, not the familiar heading of Women's Suffrage, but the restrictive and more explanatory title of 'Parliamentary Franchise for Women Ratepayers,' has made so judicious an attempt at forestalling criticism by definition that it is a pity it will be quite thrown away. The Society's object manifestly is to place in unmistakable prominence the exact claim they are making for their clients, and to restrain their opponents from confuting their arguments for it by replies against claims which they are not making. But it is not the way of opponents in any matter to allow the other side to limit attack to where it can most easily be met. Taken by itself, on its own merits, a measure which would do no more than allow certain women whom circumstances have placed in a position of independent responsibility to have the vote by right of their possessing the same legal qualifications as their male neighbours, involves no particular principle but that of common-place justice. If there is disturbance of the relation of the sexes, of the Paradisaical, or Miltonic, subordination of women, it is in allowing them to hold independent positions at all.
