The Dominion. MONDAY, APRIL 1, 1912. THE SUFFRAGIST SETBACK.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1403, 1 April 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, APRIL 1, 1912. THE SUFFRAGIST SETBACK.

The extraordinary fate of tho Women Suffrage Conciliation Bill is of less importance in its bearing on the suffrage question than in its bearing on the general programme of the Liberal party. The Suffragists, and indeed most people, expected that tho Bill, the principle of which has in the past had the subscription of a majority in tho House, would be accorded a second reading at any rate, although nobody imagined that it would get any further, since the Government has an Electoral Kcform Bill in respect of which facilities aro to be given to tho House to insert a women suffrage amendment. The defeat of the Bill by fourteen votes under highly sensational and picturescjtie circumstances is accordingly a heavy blow to tho Suffragists, who are already, as a cable message informs us to-day, urging a serious policy of mingled lawful and lawless reprisal. The issue is one upon which the two great parties are both split, and (me, therefore, which neither side will niakt , , or nt least lias not yet seen its way lo make, a party issue. As u result both lobbies were I In.' sixties of sunn 1 excrcdingly quaint, juxtapositions and aHhiucrs. Never again pi-rlisips will iln , Ayi-s lobby contain at uni , lime ilniinx' ■■> division Ml;. l,l.ovi>-(!i;oi:tsi-:, ,M i;; ]}i;i!xs, Mil. Box.w: Law, Mi:. 8.u.I'oun, and Jilt. O'Eiitii.v; nor will Uio Noes lobby, ovor again finU Mu.

Winston Churchill and Jin. Austen Cii.-pjiikklun- rubbing shoulders, or Mu. Hobhousr mid Mr. F. K. Smith. Wu aro unfortunately not supplied with more than the. most meagre hints of the speeches in the debate, bnl, it is apparent that Mr. Asqi-iTH, the protagonist of tin; whole, anti-suffragist army, has simply hardened in his opposition to votes for .women. The important feature of the division is the attitude of the Nationalists. Forty-one of them opposed the measure in order to save a week of Parliamentary time for the. benefit of the. Home Ktile Bill. Their action will be widely interpreted as evidence of a belief amongst 11 n. Itenmoxd's followers that the Govern; menfc is so deeply committed on the Irish question that the time has come for dispensing with tact and resorting to whip and spur. Mu. Redmond, who has been sedulously cultivating, in his public speeches, the goodwill of the English public, o.iid exerting himself to present his 2>ai - ty as thn |)arty of conciliation and friendship, will find it exceedingly difficult to repair the injury that the voting on the Bill will inflict upon the Home Rule cause, for it is difficult to believe that the 41 Nationalists who killed the Bill did so without orders or contrary to orders. Mr. O'Brien will be able to say that cither Mr. Redmond lias no control of, the impatient extremists or else Mr. Redmond is as unsuited as he (Mr. O'Brien) has always proclaimed him to be to recommend Home Rule to the sympathies of Englishmen. The Suffragists will not shrink from using all their influence to revenge their defeat, and they will be able to say —perhaps quite unjustly—that that cause should not receive English support which can resort to such rough, selfish, _ and unsympathetic tactics. In their bitterness and despair they aro capable of wrecking Home Rule altogether by organised peaceful opposition.