as that of man she would have attained a larger share in the control of business.

Debarred from many occupations by custom, tradition, or sex disability, woman throws the whole weight of her competition on to those trades which are open to her; this pressure alone is sufficient to account for the low wages that women receive. Incidentally she forces down the wages of men where she meets their competition, and thus, perhaps, further increases the number of unmarried men, the superfluity of women. Where she can be compared with man, her wages still are lower. She is more docile, more eager to please, but she is also less robust; a sudden heavy stress may disconcert her; she is—rightly—not allowed to work at night in factories or workshops or to work much overtime. A butler is paid more than a parlour-maid, though he will not do more work, and may not do it better. He can command more wages because more trades are open to him as a man; employers are willing to pay more because of his superior dignity and prestige. In the same way, though a female nurse will work at night, a male nurse, who is employed for necessity, cannot be engaged for the same wage as a

woman.

Let us put aside once and for all the fallacy that men are paid more because they may be supporting a wife and family. This kind of justice does not result from the operation of economic forces-though the Government might justify lower payments by such an argument. In business, when we engage a man we do not inquire whether he has a wife, or what his family may number, and then fix his wages. Bachelor or married, we pay him what he is worth in the market provided he is worth that sum to us. That is how wages are settled in the world of business. Economics have nothing to do with abstract justice; and all reasoning that endeavours to disguise this fact is fallacious. The man and the woman-each is paid what he or she can fetch in the market; unfortunately the prices for women run low; the market is against them, custom is against them, tradition is against them, prestige is against them. But they are not therefore insolvent; they pay their way; if they earn less they consume less; one way or another they shoulder their burden of life, even the burden of rates and taxes.

This is a pitiful story, and we are not sanguine that legislation will do much to improve it. Legislation in the economic field is like stirring water with a rake; you may move some of it, but the forces will flow round and about, and the general levels will remain the same. But the forces may change; customs change, traditions change, opinions change; new doors will open, new employments will be found; the influx of superfluous women will be gradually absorbed. Women's education for practical life needs much improvement; much is already being done to fit them for domestic life; more is needed to fit them for industrial and business life. It can no longer be assumed that the inevitable destiny of a woman is to be married; the figures give the lie to that assumption.

But meanwhile the bitterness engendered by this harsh and unequal competition puts venom into the feminist movement. Everywhere woman finds barriers that impede her progress; some of them may be necessary, some of them may be right, others may be desirable, but all of them are galling; and the struggling woman may be pardoned if she is unable to distinguish those barriers which should be maintained from others which are plainly the work of prejudice or of tradition and custom-which come to us from a different, perhaps a happier, state of things. She may be pardoned if she is not willing to wait until in due course the economic readjustment takes place by slow and gradual social change. If she be told in plain words that her company is not desired, that men prefer her room, that their delicate sensibilities are offended if they meet her in the act of earning her bread, sex hostility is the natural result. The problem is there, and it will not be made more easy by anger and contempt. Here, once again, meneven men of science-might do well to take more pains to understand the woman whom God gave to them. Good reason should be shown if woman is to be excluded from any legitimate occupation; if she is not fit for it she will not be employed, or she will be seldom employed, and no harm will be done.

Mrs. Colquhoun's book is admirably sane and even-tempered; she is much concerned with the rebellious spirit manifested by young women of the middle classes, and fostered in them. by celibate teachers, ignorant of life. The higher education of women is a new thing; new learning flies to the head; new learning breaks up old ideas and old conventions; there

is a fluidity in the thoughts of the new woman which allows them to take almost any shape-some of them frankly anarchic and destructive. This fever must burn itself out; extended sex experience will teach its own lessons. Women have learnt that they can beat men in examinations; they have learnt that they have more gifts than they knew; only by experiment can they learn in what directions their gifts lead to excellence. Much individual disappointment, much personal disaster must be faced before the experiment is complete. At present the new woman is bent on proving herself the equal of man in all respects. It is doubtful, as Mrs. Colquhoun says, whether it is really good for any class of persons to indulge for any length of time in the contemplation of their own virtues, but a temporary excess of selfadmiration may be pardoned. Woman is, no doubt, the equal of man in value, in some gifts superior, with others more penuriously equipped. She must test her own strength, and find her own limitations. Mrs. Colquhoun, a convinced evolutionist, calls upon her to do her duty to the race. But selfconscious duty to the race is for few a potent motive; nature and instinct must protect the race; when this excitement has subsided nature and instinct will come into their own.

Politics often act as a safety valve for passions that might otherwise be destructive. But these passions are too deeply seated to be exhausted in a political struggle. Their acrimony is now concentrated on the struggle for woman suffrage, but their roots are fixed in profounder regions. Yet the vote if it were granted even in a limited form, so that the principle were admitted-would probably do much to assuage the feeling of injustice. It may therefore be worth while to consider on what grounds the suffrage can be demanded, and what effects might ensue if it were granted. However great the relief to feelings lacerated by apparent injustice, it will be agreed that the vote should not be given to women if it is not just to give it; it may even be suggested that, whether just or not, it should not be given if its consequences are likely to be disastrous. Self-preservation comes before justice as a final motive.

We agree that the vote should not be given as a concession to violence. It has been most unfortunate for the women that the policy of violence was ever adopted. It has turned

indifference into hostility; it has made the women ridiculous; it has lowered our opinion of their wisdom, for violence is not their weapon, nor can it ever be; the violence of woman does not inspire fear; and violence which fails in that fails altogether. We agree also that personal abuse has no compelling virtue; cries of selfishness, want of chivalry, tyranny, prejudice, affect us not at all; prejudices in particular may be good or bad, and a good prejudice ensures right conduct without the trouble of deliberation, for which there may not be leisure. Nor again need we fear to be declared illogical. Distinctions must be observed in conduct, which cannot be fully explained by logic. It was a great lawyer who said that the House of Lords must not be bound by the apparent consequences of its own decisions. Logic is a good engine of warfare but a bad guide. But when we come to justice and expediency we are on more solid ground.

We are not going to attempt a definition of justice. The greatest philosophers have attempted such a definition and have failed. It would be strange if Sir Almroth Wright had succeeded; but he might have modestly refrained from the attempt. After a few words about legal justice, the kind of justice that is administered in a court of law-a very special, limited, and imperfect kind-he proceeds to lay down that justice must be conformable to the principle of utility and be directed to the advantage of society. The conception of 'justice is thus everywhere interfused with considerations 'of utility and expediency.' If he had said that justice is often frustrated, constantly frustrated, by considerations of utility and expediency, he would have been nearer the mark. The conflict between justice and expediency is one of the commonplaces of human life. Whoever said fiat justitia, ruat 'caclum' represented one school of thought; the more common is that which would have sent Dreyfus, though innocent, to the Ile du Diable in order to save the prestige of the French army. The former is the more commendable, but surpasses the capacity of human virtue. In effect Sir Almroth Wright confuses justice with expediency, two antagonistic conceptions. This fusion assists his argument for the moment, but lays him open to the charge of discussing what he does not understand; or, at least, of assuming a new philosophy which he does not expound.

Although it may be difficult to deliver a definition of justice that will truly represent the idea that lies in the heart of man, it may be conceded that equality is not justice except where equals are concerned. But like treatment for like persons is one of the principles of justice; and one of the principles of democracy is equality in respect of the vote. We live under a system of representative democracy, which recognises all kinds of inequality-in position, in power, in authority, in wealth-but treats almost all men as equal for the vote, excluding on the other hand all women. Plural voting is an accident which can be put aside as a manifest anachronism. Excluding that, the theory of democracy is to ascertain the will of all by asking for the vote of each, to ascertain the will of the people by assuming that for this purpose the importance of every voter is the same as that of any other. All considerations of wealth, position, wisdom, learning, strength, usefulness, experience, personal service, are set aside; any man who has the legal qualification has a vote, and each vote is of equal importance in the constituency in which it is

cast.

Now in asking the democratic question, Which candidate do you support? we cannot be asking for wisdom or guidance. If we were we should inquire of Mr. Balfour or Mr. Asquith, Lord Cromer or Lord Milner or Sir Edward Grey, Sir Oliver Lodge, Lord Halsbury, Lord Haldane, or Sir Almroth Wright. No sane person can suppose that the majority has any prerogative of wisdom; there are a thousand stupid people to one intelligent, ten thousand ordinary men to one who is wise. We equate all voters because in a sense their interests are all of equal importance to us; they all are or are assumed to be sane, law-abiding, solvent persons, and as a State we care for each of them equally. They may be right or they may be wrong; but their interests are at stake; and therefore we ask them all their opinion. That opinion settles one or two things; it does not directly settle much; but it has weight in legislation which does not matter much, in administration which matters more, and in the general trend of affairs which matters most. In this democratic equality all men, or nearly all men, share alike; but no woman counts at all. Women may speak on platforms, they may and do canvass, they may and do influence voters, they may and do win elections; but