exclusively among the wealthy, cultured,
and brain-labouring classes, where alone, at the present day, the
danger of enervation through non-employment, and of degeneration through
dependence on the sex function exists. The female labour movement of our
day is, in its ultimate essence, an endeavour on the part of a section
of the race to save itself from inactivity and degeneration, and this,
even at the immediate cost of most heavy loss in material comfort and
ease to the individuals composing it. The male labour movement
is, directly and in the first place, material; and, or at least
superficially, more or less self-seeking, though its ultimate reaction
on society by saving the poorer members from degradation and dependency
and want is undoubtedly wholly social and absolutely essential for
the health and continued development of the human race. In the Woman's
Labour Movement of our day, which has essentially taken its rise among
women of the more cultured and wealthy classes, and which consists
mainly in a demand to have the doors leading to professional, political,
and highly skilled labour thrown open to them, the ultimate end can only
be attained at the cost of more or less intense, immediate, personal
suffering and renunciation, though eventually, if brought to a
satisfactory conclusion, it will undoubtedly tend to the material and
physical well-being of woman herself, as well as to that of her male
companions and descendants.

The coming half-century will be a time of peculiar strain, as mankind
seeks rapidly to adjust moral ideals and social relationships and the
general ordering of life to the new and continually unfolding material
conditions. If these two great movements of our age, having this as
their object, can be brought into close harmony and co-operation, the
readjustment will be the sooner and more painlessly accomplished; but,
for the moment, the two movements alike in their origin and alike in
many of their methods of procedure, remain distinct.

It is this fact, the consciousness on the part of the women taking their
share in the Woman's Movement of our age, that their efforts are not,
and cannot be, of immediate advantage to themselves, but that they
almost of necessity and immediately lead to loss and renunciation, which
gives to this movement its very peculiar tone; setting it apart from the
large mass of economic movements, placing it rather in a line with those
vast religious developments whic