But I do not for a moment say that when this inferior intellectual and physical capacity of woman is admitted the question is settled as to whether women should vote for the election of representatives to carry on the affairs of the country. The affairs of the country! They are, in the first place, the protection of person and property by the law, which must be upheld by force if necessary; then defence against foreign aggression, also a matter of force; and, further, the education and training not only of children but of the ripe youth of the country--a matter of intellect--which also has a weighty influence in the making of wise laws. Then there is the devising of weapons and means of defence by land and by sea, as well as the discovery and application of knowledge in regard to disease, both of mind and body, for the benefit of the community. And there will soon be a good deal more! It does not necessarily follow, because women cannot themselves do some of these things at all, and for the others are less able than men, that they should not give a vote in electing the men who are to attend to them. The only question is, Would it make life better for both women and men were they allowed to do so? The argument that the paying of taxes on men’s property qualifies men to give a vote, and therefore the paying of taxes on women’s property should, _ipso facto_, entitle women to give a vote, is fallacious, because the paying of taxes is not the reason or determining cause of men having a vote, but only a subsidiary test or qualification which might be abolished or modified. The property of minors pays the tax, but it is not proposed on that account that children should vote. The property qualifications in use at present are merely a method for excluding certain men, and we might have an intellectual qualification or a muscular qualification for the same purpose. Indeed, we do at present exclude male imbeciles and those who are immature. The reason for extending the Parliamentary vote to a larger and larger body of the male population has been to secure the assent of the strength and manhood of the country to the laws and public acts of the Government, and to ensure its willing participation in that maintenance of the central Government’s decisions by physical force, which is the ultimate and by no means very remote method by which they are maintained. It does not seem to be likely to be an improvement on our present system that women, who must always be regarded as specially privileged because of their physical weakness, should nevertheless be allowed to influence by the mere number of their votes the decision of questions in which the employment of the physical strength of men acting as defenders of our territory, guardians of the peace, or ministers of the law, is the essential condition of an effective result following on such decision.