lter
Long, president of the local government board, a typical conservative
country gentleman and at that time an anti-suffragist, made the
suggestion that the whole question of Electoral Reform, including the
enfranchisement of women, should be referred to a non-party
Conference, consisting of members of both Houses of Parliament and
presided over by the Speaker. Mr. Asquith concurred and Parliament
agreed. Women's Suffrage was only one of many subjects connected with
Electoral Reform which had to be dealt with by the Conference but it
is not too much to say that if it had not been for the urgency of the
claim of women to representation the Conference would never have been
brought into existence.

The members of this Conference were chosen by the Speaker, who was
careful to give equal representation to suffragists and
anti-suffragists. Sir John Simon and Sir Willoughby Dickinson, members
of the Conference, were very active and skilful in organising the
forces in our favour. The Conference was called into being in October,
1916, and began its sittings at once. A ministerial crisis which
occurred in December resulted in the resignation of Mr. Asquith and
the appointment of Mr. Lloyd George as his successor. The Speaker
enquired of the new Prime Minister if he desired the Conference to
continue its labours. The reply was an emphatic affirmative. The
Conference reported on January 27, 1917. Everyone knows that it
recommended by a majority, some said a large majority, the granting of
some measure of suffrage to women. Put as briefly as possible the
franchise recommended for women was "household franchise," and for the
purposes of the bill a woman was reckoned to be a householder not only
if she was so in her own right but if she were the wife of a
householder. An age limit of thirty was imposed upon women, not
because it was in any way logical or reasonable but simply and solely
in order to produce a constituency in which the men were not
out-numbered by the women.

Some few weeks earlier we had heard on unimpeachable authority that
the new Prime Minister was "very keen and very practical" on our
question and was prepared to introduce legislation upon it without
delay. He no doubt remembered how emphatically he had told us in 1911
of the extreme value of the promises which had been made to us by Mr.
Asquith, and how in our meeting in the Albert Hall in the following
March he had referred to the doubt which some suffragist