BITTER CRITIC.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1908, 17 November 1913, Page 2

BITTER CRITIC.

HIS VIEWS UPON WOMAN. The extraordinary views which Sir Almrot.li Wright gives forth in his latest contribution to the controversy on "Votes for Women," which appeared recently, has called forth and aroused vigorous opposition from suffragists and anti-suffragists alike, writes a London 'Correspondent, In his new book, "Woman's Suffrage,"' Sir Almroth in no mincing terms arraigns tho wlwlo feminist movement. It will be remembered ho- called forth tiie wrjith of women 18 months ago in his letter to "The Times" on "Militant Hysteria." He is now kind enough to aiiow that "a- highly intellectual woman has a quicker memory and it more rapid power of apprehension than the ordinary ; ma.n," but with certain physiological advantages. "It is only tho very exceptional woman who would, when put to her election bctirecH the claims of a narrow and domestic and a wider or public morality, subordinate the former to the, latter. In ordinary life, at any rate, one find 3 her following in such a case the suggestions of domestic—l had almost called it animal—morality. It would be difficult to find anyone who would trust a woman to be just to the rights of others in the case where tho material interest of her children, or of a devoted husband, Were involved."

Sir Almroth. brushes aside the example of woman's suffrage under colonial conditions. The woman voter in . our colonies is Only a pawn in the game of 1 politics of tho opportunist, politicians who enfranchised her. "Besides, in tho colonies there is no 'woman's question,' " He is kind enough also to admit that "it is impossible, in view of the procession of starved and frustrated lives which is continuously filing past, to_ close ono's eyas to the. urgency of this Woman's problem." But th© woman who is in "economic oj physiological difßcnrties" lias a way of escape open to her—if she lias tho pluck to take i it.' "She can emigrate; she can go out from'the social class in which she is not self-supporting into a humbler social class in which she could earn a living; and she can forsake conditions in which sho must remain a spinster for conditions in which slw may perhaps become a mother."

Only in this wa.f, asserts Sir Almroth, can the problem of finding work and relief from tedium for the woman who now goes idle be solved. For the happy wife and mother .is never passionately concerned about the suffrage. It is always the woman who is galled either by physiological hardships, or' by tho fact that sho has not tho same amount of money as man or by the fact that man docs not desire her as a co-partnef in work, and withholds the homage which she thinks he ought to pay to her intellect. !! The ffljhirc," says Sir Almroth, as his last woni, "to recognise that man is master,-and why ho is the master, lies at the root, of the suffrage movement.' 1 Chiualry of the Male. Cicely Hamilton, the well-knawn j playwright, novelist, and emancipator of women, in a brilliant article declares \ that Sir Aimroth's novel is not only an attack oil suffragists, but also an attack on women in general. It proves* up to .the- hilt, she says, tho feminist contention that tho opposition to tho feminist movement on the part of a certain class of man, so far from being based on reverence, is oil sheer Contempt; and admits, as she has. SO often poiiitca oiit and been rowidly abused for doing so, that the so-callod chivalry of the male is Hot a spontaneous virtue, but essentially and merely a payment for services rendered by .woman I Oriental Views, Mr, CSecil Chapman, the London metropolitan Magistrate and an advocate of women's enfranchisement, says: . "Experience is n hundred times, better than theory. Sir Almroth Wright's' yiews are Oriental. They have, been fully refuted by the experience of Western nations without any exception Wo employ women with the greatest advantage in every sphere of social, service. Lady Frances Balfour and Mrs. TeniJant have recently sat upon the Royal Commission investigating the Divorce, Laws; Miss Sargent presided ow the botanical soction at the annual gathering of the British Association! and these are only examples of thousands of other Women who show brilliant talent in science,. art, and a- wonderful capacity for detailed, administration in alt directions. "If Sir Almroth Wright's reasoning is to b6 treated seriously, nil such Women would have to bo labelled 'danand kept under lock and key in something equivalent to a harem. (Tho world cannot afford to lose the Work of women rfc now enjoys, and if it wishes to advance it must give that work more and not less scope, by removing all the artificial barriers winch the stupidity anil selfishness, of mail have set up to hinder it. Sir Aimroth's book comes' with singular 'appropriateness' at a moment when the Church Congress is considering how best to utilise the superabundant .energies of women, His answer, at any rato, lias tho advantage of being clear and definite, They are tho unfortunate necessity, for the cofttinuance of the rate, but incalculable and dangerous. Shut them up I" As may be. imagined in women's club circles very strong opinions have been expressed on' Sir Almroth Wright; ho has roused., women's enmity, in all classes, also'their contempt. I can only repeat my comment when asked for an opinion on.this member of the medical profession at my club, "Poor man, what class of women has he known, of was he jilted in his student days?"