He went on to speak on a subject which had been much in his mind from the beginning of his political career. Proportional representation meant to him the method, and the only method, by which the different elements of the body politic could be fairly represented in Parliament. So earnestly did he hold to this view that he made up his mind, with his friend Lord Courtney, to resign his office should the Government proceed with legislation incompatible with these principles. In this last word on a subject on which it has been necessary in this book to omit so many other words, Fawcett emphasised the main principle in these phrases: ‘While we regard it as of the first moment that no important section of opinion should be effaced from representation, yet at the same time we are most anxious to secure to the majority the preponderance of power to which it is justly entitled. Let the voice of the weak be heard as well as the voice of the strong by your Government, give fair play to all, and make justice possible.’ And he added this vital remark: ‘The enfranchisement of women, already dictated by justice, would soon become a necessity.’ [Sidenote: Fawcett’s unfailing Chivalry.] His unfailing chivalry was always a radiant characteristic of his courteous nature, and he felt it his high privilege to serve women; he had the faculty of encouraging them, and filling them with confidence in their own ability; his voice, though not melodious, had a peculiar brightness that raised drooping spirits, and impressed itself upon the memory. Besides the encouragement which he gave by the employment of women in the Post Office, his efforts for compulsory education, now accepted as a matter of course, his labours to protect young children at work in factory or field, as well as his fight for free playgrounds and commons, were all helpful to the mothers of the race. On the day after his death, a poor woman, who came to the employment office to make inquiries on behalf of her daughter, who wished to enter the Civil Service, must have expressed the feelings of hundreds of struggling women, when she said: ‘We do not know who will help us now that so good a friend has gone.’ [Sidenote: Fair-play Expedient.] Believing that justice must infallibly become the most expedient policy, he felt it was not only repugnant, but bad diplomacy, that any class should be excluded by force or prejudice from having a voice in the Government, and he realised to the full that government could only be fair when it existed with the consent of the governed.