s had
expressed upon the worth of these promises as "an imputation of deep
dishonour which he absolutely declined to contemplate." He had in 1911
put into writing and sent as a message to the _Common Cause_, the
official organ of the N.U.W.S.S., a statement of his conviction that
Mr. Asquith's promises made the carrying of a Women's Suffrage
amendment to next year's franchise bill a certainty and he had offered
his personal help to bring this about. It has already been described
how all these confident hopes had been brought to nought; but now,
December, 1916, within a fortnight of becoming Prime Minister, Mr.
Lloyd George let us know that he was not only ready but keen to go
forward on practical lines. When Parliament met we asked the Prime
Minister to receive a large and representative deputation of women who
had worked for their country during the war. Our object was to ask him
to legislate at once on the lines recommended by the Speaker's
Conference but we were pushing an open door.

The new Prime Minister had arranged to receive us on March 29, 1917,
and on the 28th Mr. Asquith had moved a resolution in the House of
Commons, and his motion had been agreed to by 341 votes to 62, calling
for the early introduction of legislation based on the recommendations
of the Speaker's Conference. When our deputation waited on Mr. Lloyd
George the following day he was able to inform us that he had already
instructed the Government draftsman to draw up a bill on these lines.
The debate in the House on March 28 had turned mainly on Women's
Suffrage and the immense majority in support of Mr. Asquith's motion
was rightly regarded as a suffrage triumph. Every leader of every
party in the House of Commons had taken part in the debate and had
expressed his support of the enfranchisement of women. The Government
whips had not been put on and throughout the debates which followed
the Bill was not treated as a Government but as a House of Commons
measure. The victory, therefore, was all the more welcome to us
because it was the result of a free vote of the House. Mr. Asquith's
retraction of his former errors was quite handsome. He said, among
other things, that his "eyes which for years in this matter had been
clouded by fallacies and sealed by illusions at last had been opened
to the truth." It required a European War on the vastest scale that
the world had ever known to shake him out of his fallacies and
illusions, and many of us felt