WOMEN WHO LEAD.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 467, 27 March 1909, Page 11

WOMEN WHO LEAD.

"The Queen" is publishing a series of articles dealing with leaders and speakers in the women's suffrage movement. Those mentioned in its first articlo are Lady Prances Balfour, Mrs. Henry Fawcett, LL.D., Miss Esther Palliser, Miss Beatrice Harraden, and Mrs. Pember Reeves. President of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies—a federation in which are comprised most of the older suffrage organisations—Mrs. Henry'Fawcett is deservedly the leader of a great number of educated and influential women who wish, if it be possible, to obtain the enfranchisement of their sex by legitimate and constitutional methods. Mrs. Fawcett's life history is well known. She is a daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Newson Garrett, of Aldeburgh, and member of a family of remarkable force and ability, widow of tho Right Hon. Henry Fawcett, who worked in many ways to remove the restrictions arbitrarily laid on women's powers, and she is mother of Miss Philippa Fawcett, who would under an equal academic system for both sexes have been Senior Wrangler at Cambridge. Mrs. Fawcett is the author of "Political Economy for Beginners," 1870; "Tales in Political Economy," 1875; "Essays and Lectures" (jointly with Henry Fawcett), 1872; "Some Eminent Women of Onr Timo," 1889; "Life of Queen Victoria," 1895; "Life of Sir William Molesworth," 1901; "Fivo Famous French Women," 1906. It is not hero tho timo or place to do more than suggest how much Mrs. Fawcett is admired and reveronced by her followers, not only for mental powers, which of their kind are unique, but for those _ qualities of single-minded devotion to cortain principles and self-forgetfnlness in pursuing them which are rare even among leaders. Among all tho forcible spcakors on the subject it is difficult to think of ono who is the equal of Mrs. Fawcett in the power of clear presentation of tho arguments, in Teadiness of rejoinder, and in that kind of-masterly grip of ber whole subject which impresses an I audience of highly educated, critical, and somewhat controversial people.