Bebel's _Woman_--has been so
widely read or so influential. The support of this distinguished and
authoritative thinker gave to the woman's movement a stamp of
aristocratic intellectuality very valuable in a land where even the
finest minds are apt to be afflicted by the disease of timidity, and was
doubtless a leading cause of the cordial reception which in England the
idea of women's political emancipation has long received among
politicians. Bebel's book, speedily translated into English, furnished
the plebeian complement to Mill's.

The movement for the education of women and their introduction into
careers previously monopolized by men inevitably encouraged the movement
for extending the franchise to women. This political reform was
remarkably successful in winning over the politicians, and not those of
one party only. In England, since Mill published his _Subjection of
Women_ in 1869, there have always been eminent statesmen convinced of
the desirability of granting the franchise to women, and among the rank
and file of Members of Parliament, irrespective of party, a very large
proportion have pledged themselves to the same cause. The difficulty,
therefore, in introducing woman's suffrage into England has not been
primarily in Parliament. The one point, at which political party feeling
has caused obstruction--and it is certainly a difficult and important
point--is the method by which woman's suffrage should be introduced.
Each party--Conservative, Liberal, Labour--naturally enough desires that
this great new voting force should first be applied at a point which
would not be likely to injure its own party interests. It is probable
that in each party the majority of the leaders are of opinion that the
admission of female voters is inevitable and perhaps desirable; the
dispute is as to the extent to which the floodgates should in the first
place be opened. In accordance with English tradition, some kind of
compromise, however illogical, suggests itself as the safest first step,
but the dispute remains as to the exact class of women who should be
first admitted and the exact extent to which entrance should be granted
to them.

The dispute of the gate-keepers would, however, be easily overcome if
the pressure behind the gate were sufficiently strong. But it is not.
However large a proportion of the voters in Great Britain may be in
favour of women's franchise, it is certain that only a very minute
percentage regard