“But Prohibition, shutting the public-house round the corner, every man and woman understands that, and the women will vote for it anyhow, blind to every other consideration. That is something they can understand, and the peace of the world, the volume of trade, and economic justice may go hang so long as son and husband can be shut and barred from the drink. Interference with the personal habits of other people is innate in women; they acquire it as sisters, wives, and mothers. The enfranchisement of women was the last step in the devotion of democracy to futility. It ended the last possibilities of constructive legislation and inaugurated the age of restraint.” He went on to sketch the growth of the Prohibition movement in England; the drift of politicians towards a defined attitude in the matter; the way in which the question could be used to thrust aside wider and more abstract issues. “Watch the speeches of Lloyd George,” he said. “Watch the speeches of the pushing young men. They are nearer to it than you are. They know.” So-and-so said this yesterday, and So-and-so said that last week. He produced an effect of being detestably right about his facts. He said that making Prohibition a part of the American Constitution was the silliest thing in history; one might hold the extremest temperance views and still understand that a matter of personal health and conduct should have no part in the fundamental laws of a State. But the American citizen had lost any idea of what a constitution was. Presently the American woman might put a morning bath in the constitution, or the weekly weighing of babies or the universal use of tooth-brushes. Or they might require every married man and woman to carry his or her marriage lines conspicuously displayed upon the person, like the bright little licence on an English motor-car. These were the things they held important. England was going the same way, following a few years behind America, because it was a country of more deeply established disciplines and diffidences, but I might rest assured it would get to the same end. In twenty years’ time there would be no politics left in Parliament but the politics of scandal and minor moralities, and the big things of human life would be managed in some other fashion. Thus my friend, and I found it very difficult to gainsay him. LII SEX ANTAGONISM: AN UNAVOIDABLE AND INCREASING FACTOR IN MODERN LIFE 30.8.24 I have been reading a book called _Ancilla’s Share_; it professes to be an indictment of Sex Antagonism, but indeed it is an artless demonstration of it. It was first published as anonymous, but then came paragraphs ascribing it to Miss Elizabeth Robins. Now I gather she admits her authorship. I find little of her fine gloomy talent in it. Possibly she is only partly responsible.