during the war because their members were already organised and
accustomed to work together, but it is no exaggeration to say that the
whole of the women of the country of all classes, suffragist and
anti-suffragist, threw themselves into work for the nation in a way
that had never been anticipated by those who had judged women by
pre-war standards. Into munition work and all kinds of manufacturing
activity they crowded in their thousands. They worked on the land and
undertook many kinds of labour that had hitherto been supposed to be
beyond their strength and capacity. By what was called the Treasury
agreement of 1915 the Trade Unions were induced to suspend the
operation of their rules excluding the employment of female labour.
They bargained that women should be paid the same as men for the same
output and the Government agreed not to use the women as a reservoir
of cheap labour. Thus industrial liberty was ensured for women at
least so long as the war should last.

All these things combined to produce an enormous effect on public
opinion. Newspapers were full of the praises of women; financiers,
statesmen, economists and politicians declared that without the aid of
women it would be impossible to win the war. The anti-suffragism of
Mr. Asquith even was beginning to crumble. In speaking of the heroic
death of Edith Cavell in Belgium in October, 1915, he said: "She has
taught the bravest men among us a supreme lesson of courage; yes ...
and there are thousands of such women and a year ago we did not know
it." Almost the whole of the press was on our side. The general tone
was that it would be difficult to refuse woman a voice in the control
of affairs after the splendid way in which she had justified her claim
to it. We old suffragists felt that we were living in a new world
where everyone agreed with us. Nevertheless, I do not believe we
should have won the vote just when we did if it had not been that,
through the action of the Government itself, it was absolutely
necessary to introduce legislation in order to prevent the almost
total disfranchisement of many millions of men who had been serving
their country abroad in the Navy and Army, or in munition or other
work which had withdrawn them from the places where they usually
resided.

It may be necessary to explain to non-British readers that by far the
most important qualification for the Parliamentary franchise in this
country before 1918 was the occupation of