rned in 1906 had an immense Liberal majority. There
were only 157 Unionist members in the House of Commons against 513
Liberals, Labour men and Nationalists, all of whom were for Home Rule
and therefore prepared to support in all critical divisions the new
administration which was formed under the Premiership of Sir Henry
Campbell Bannerman. The new House contained 426 members pledged to
Women's Suffrage. The Premier was himself a suffragist but his Cabinet
contained several determined anti-suffragists, notable among whom were
Mr. Herbert H. Asquith, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. James
Bryce, chief secretary for Ireland (now Lord Bryce), who became
British Ambassador to the United States in 1907. The new Prime
Minister received a large, representative suffrage deputation in May,
1906, in which all sections of suffragist opinion were represented,
and their case was laid before him with force and clearness. In reply
he told them that they had made out "a conclusive and irrefutable
case" but that he was not prepared to take any steps to realize their
hopes. When asked what he would advise ardent suffragists to do he
told them to "go on pestering." This advice was taken to heart by the
group (a small minority of the whole) who had lately formed in
Manchester the organization known as The Women's Social and Political
Union, led by Mrs. Pankhurst.

An unforeseen misfortune was the death in 1908 of Sir H. C. Bannerman
and the fact that his successor was our principal opponent in the
Government, Mr. Asquith. It was not very long before he revealed the
line of his attack upon the enfranchisement of women. He informed his
party in May, 1908, that his intention was to introduce before the
expiration of the existing Parliament a Reform Bill giving a wide
extension of the franchise to men and no franchise at all to women. In
the previous February a Women's Suffrage Bill which removed all sex
disability from existing franchises had passed its second reading in
the House of Commons but this apparently had no effect on Mr. Asquith.
There were, however, some cracks in his armour. He admitted that about
two-thirds of his Cabinet and a majority of his party were favourable
to Women's Suffrage and he promised that when his own exclusively male
Reform Bill was before the House and had got into committee, if an
amendment to include women were moved on democratic lines, his
Government, as a Government, would not oppose it. This was at