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Woman Suffrage in Parliament: A Test for Cabinet Autocracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Evans Clark
Evans Clark*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

The woman suffrage movement in Great Britain has rendered a service for political science of which even its adherents are often unaware. It has brought to a most searching test the prevailing constitutional theory.

In these days of psycho-analysis of the individual there should be also some psycho-analysis of political institutions. Political theory, like the pious formulas with which we drape the nudity of our real desires and aspirations, is often at bottom what might be called a highly intellectualized excuse. Political theory is an afterthought: a justification or explanation of the desires and aspirations of the dominant economic and social group. The “divine right of kings” is now a hollow pretension to us. But it was as much a reality to the aristocracy, whose power is explained and excused, as are our own instinctive personal excuses. The “natural rights of man” have proven hardly more substantial,—the great excuse in which the rising commercial classes have ever covered their designs against the aristocracy. And now, at last, in the theory that “labor creates all wealth,” we find the embryo excuse for a growing threat of the working class.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , May 1917 , pp. 284 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1917

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References

1 Dicey, A. V., Lectures on the Law and the Constitution, p. 35.Google Scholar

2 Bryce, , American Commonwealth (1910), vol. 1, p. 286.Google Scholar

3 Slater, , The Making of Modern England (Revised Ed.), pp. 281–282.Google Scholar

4 Quoted in Low, , The Governance of England, pp. 57–58.Google Scholar

5 I do not discuss the house of lords in connection with either the broad problem of cabinet autocracy or its by-product in the history of the suffrage movement, because with two unimportant exceptions all suffrage activity has been confined to the lower house, and because under the new status of the upper house it could not block a public bill passed by three successive sessions of commons during a period of two years.

6 The steps in the passage of a bill through the house of commons are as follows: (1) Introduction and first reading. This is usually a mere formality; the title only is read and it is rarely even put to vote. (2) Second reading. This takes place after a debate on the principle and general terms of the bill and a vote as to whether it shall be so read. (3) Committee stage. A bill passed on its second reading goes to either a standing committee or a special committee, or to the whole membership sitting as a committee of the whole for detailed consideration and amendment. (4) Report. The bill so amended is reported to the house and debated in detail. (5) Third reading. This final stage is similar to the second reading.

7 It might be claimed that all the absentees opposed suffrage and yet did not want to incur the enmity of the suffragist forces by voting against it. While this is no doubt true in some cases, an investigation of the number of absentees on days when the most important bills of the session were given a second reading discloses at least 100 absent—only 81 less than the absentees at the suffrage bill vote. (See Whitaker's, Almanack, 1911, pp. 155–159.Google Scholar) It is altogether probable that among the number were more than a few supporters of the measure.

8 164 Parliamentary Debates (4th series) 572.

9 A government measure is a bill proposed by a member of the cabinet and backed in its passage by the cabinet's power.

10 It may be claimed that the affirmative vote on a suffrage bill is not an accurate test of suffrage sentiment because some opponents of the cause might vote in favor of the measure to gain in popularity, knowing that the bill would be finally blocked by the cabinet. This claim has no positive evidence that I have discovered to support it. At all events it is impossible, in a survey of legislative votes, to delve into the field of the members' motives. Such a procedure must, in the nature of things, be largely conjecture.

11 The suffrage movement has been entirely directed to gaining votes for members of parliament. Women were given the same right to vote as men (except during the life of their husbands) in municipal elections by the municipal corporations act (13 and 14 Vic., Ch. 21.) of 1869.

12 Blackburn, , Record of Women's Suffrage, pp. 53–56.Google Scholar

13 187 Hansard's, Parliamentary Debates (3d series), 817–845Google Scholar; Blackburn, op. cit., pp. 61–63.

14 Lowell, , Government of England, vol. 1, p. 207.Google Scholar

15 13 and 14 Vic., Ch. 21.

16 Blackburn, pp. cit., pp. 73–88.

17 201 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates (3d series), 194–240.

18 201 Hansard, op. cit., 607–622; Blackburn, op. cit., pp. 106–107.

19 For 1871, 206 Hansard, op. cit., 68–123; for 1872, 211 ibid., 1–71; for 1873, 215, ibid., 1194–1258. Also Blackburn, op. cit., pp. 117–124.

20 Blackburn, op. cit., p. 124.

21 Blackburn, op. cit., p. 139. Certain days are set aside for private members—i.e., members of the house who are not acting for the cabinet—to introduce their measures. The rest of the time is given over exclusively to government business.

22 For 1875, 223 Hansard, op. cit., 418–457; for 1876, 228 ibid., 1658–1744; for 1877, 234 ibid., 1362–1415; for 1878, 240 ibid., 1800–1874. Also, and for 1879, Blackburn, op. cit., pp. 140–146, and chart opposite p. 117.

23 Blackburn, op. cit., p. 139, quoting Women's Suffrage Journal, 1875, p. 122.

24 Ibid., chart opposite p. 101.

25 281 Hansard, op. cit., 664–724; Blackburn, op. cit.

26 Ibid., pp. 162–163.

27 288 Hansard, op. cit., 1942–1964; 289 ibid., 91–207; Blackburn, op. cit., pp. 164–165; Fawcett, , Women's Suffrage, p. 28.Google Scholar

28 Women's Suffrage Journal, July, 1884.

29 Blackburn, op. cit., chart opposite p. 168.

30 302 Hansard, op. cit., 689–702. As by these two ballots the sentiment of the house was clearly shown in regard to the bill, no member demanded a vote as to whether it should be read a second time.

31 Blackburn, op. cit., p. 169, and chart opposite p. 168.

32 Fawcett, op. cit., p. 85.

33 Blackburn, op. cit., chart opposite p. 168.

34 So many private members wish to bring in measures in the short time allowed them that they have had recourse to a “ballot” at the beginning of each session by which they drew the available days by lot.

35 352 Hansard, op. cit., 1775–1799; Blackburn, op. cit., p. 191.

36 Mr. Gladstone, as leader of the opposition, would naturally be the next prime minister.

37 A whip in this sense of the word is a notice signed by influential members of the house to other members to appear in the house at a certain time and vote for or against a certain measure.

38 3 Parl. Deb. (4th series), 1453–1530; Blackburn, op. cit., p. 195; Fawcett, op. cit., p. 33.

39 An instruction is a direction by the house to the committee in charge of a bill to add certain provisions.

40 Blackburn, op. cit., chart opposite p. 168. Also pp. 201–203.

41 Members had by this time begun the custom of syndicating their ballots. All the members in favor of the bill would ballot for a day and the one securing the best place would put it down for that date.

42 45 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 1173–1239; Blackburn, op. cit., p. 210; Fawcett, op. cit., p. 34.

43 50 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 1298–1331; Blackburn, op. cit., p. 213.

44 Blackburn, op. cit., chart opposite p. 168.

45 Ibid.

46 For 1902, 111 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 1327; for 1903, 120 ibid., 181; for 1904, 131 ibid., 1331–1367.

47 Pankhurst, E. S., The Suffragette, pp. 12–15Google Scholar; Pankhurst, E., My Own Story, pp. 41–43Google Scholar; 146 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 218–235.

48 164 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 572.

49 155 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 1570–1587; Pankhuret, , The Suffragette, pp. 67–70.Google Scholar The militant suffrage organization, the Women's Social and Political Union, had just been formed (1903) with the express purpose of using the same methods to obtain the vote for women that men had previously used to gain extensions of the franchise among themselves.

50 E. Pankhurst, op. cit., p. 65; E. S. Pankhuret, op. cit., pp. 76–77.

51 164 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 571–573; E. S. Pankhurst, op. cit., p. 127.

52 165 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 1491–1502: E. S. Pankhurst, op. cit., p. 129.

53 E. S. Pankhuret, op. cit., pp. 147, 150.

54 170 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 1109–1111.

55 Ibid., 1102–1163; Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 69–70; E. S. Pankhurst, op. cit., pp. 150–151.

56 184 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 981–982. Private members' time extends only to 5.30 p.m.

57 185 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 211–287; E. S. Pankhurst, op. cit., 204–207.

58 Annual Register, 1908, p. 48; Whitaker's, Almanack, 1909, p. 155Google Scholar (Strength of Parties).

59 E. S. Pankhurst, op. cit., pp. 207, 222–223.

60 2 Parl. Deb. (5th series) 1360–1434; E. S. Pankhurst, op. cit., 364–366; Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 70–71.

61 19 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 41–150 and 207–333; Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 73–78; E. S. Pankhurst, op. cit., pp. 488–494.

62 E. S. Pankhurst, op. cit., p. 499.

63 20 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 82–148; E. S. Pankhurst, op. cit., pp. 502–503.

64 Members who cannot be present at a vote cancel their votes off with other members who cannot be present but who would vote the other way.

65 25 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 738–810; E. S. Pankhurst, op. cit., p. 504; Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 77–78.

66 Fawcett, op. cit., pp. 78–80.

67 Militant tactics used from the formation of the W. S. P. U. (1903) to 1910 caused no setback in the progress of suffrage bills in the house; their effect was probably the other way.

68 36 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 615–732; Brittanica Year Book, 1912, p. 88.

69 International Year Book, 1913, p. 319.

70 47 Parl. Deb., op. cit., 1019–1092.

71 For two brilliant analyses of this situation see Belloc, and Chesterton, , The Party System, pp. 77–98Google Scholar, and Low, , The Governance of England, pp. 55–94.Google Scholar

72 Lowell, , Government of England, vol. 1, pp. 311–312Google Scholar; House of Commons, Standing Order No. 4.

73 This is done on all “contentious” bills—i.e., measures of some importance which are opposed.

74 Lowell, op. cit., p. 260.

75 Lowell, op. cit., p. 314.

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