“On this solemn occasion,” he is saying as Estcourt comes in, “I beseech of your lordships to cast aside the cloak of old prejudices and selfish monopoly, and obey the unmistakable will of the country, which has appointed a House of Commons pledged to carry this great act of human justice and reparation. I appeal to you to show on this occasion a true courage worthy of men, and abolish for ever from the Statute Book those disabilities under which women are deprived of rights to which they are entitled by reason of their common humanity with man. The stale arguments of past days can no longer be advanced in opposition to this bill. The false and brutal pretexts which formerly were adopted to reason away the human rights of women, can no longer be resorted to. Woman has triumphantly established the fact that her mental capacities are equal to man’s—ay, and her physical powers of strength and endurance as well, where she has been given fair chances and fair play. There remains but one argument against the removal of her disabilities and the triumphant assertion of the principles of this bill; that one argument is selfishness. Men are unwilling, in many instances, to allow women whom they have held in subjection so long, to assume a position of equality with themselves. These men object to remove the halo with which they have self-crowned themselves; they object, in fact, to share with women the good things of this earth. There is but one definition of this attitude of opposition, and that is selfishness, my lords, pure and unadulterated selfishness. But the time has come when this selfishness is too glaring and apparent to pass from sight, when it must be faced, fought with, and conquered. On its defeat depends—not the welfare of man only, but the welfare and advance of the world. We have sought to rule against the laws of Nature too long, we have sought, by artificial means, to keep the world going, and we have failed. What has the rule of man accomplished? The vain gratification of a few, the misery of millions and hundreds of millions. War has been invented to glorify men, to uphold dynasties loathed, in many instances, by the people; vice and immorality rage for the gratification of the ruler man; philanthropy exists to patch up the sores and abscesses brought about in Society by his excesses; the starving, the criminal, and the miserable, are supported by taxes wrung from the people. Religion spreads abroad its thousands of arms, each one asserting its sole right to be, but the fact remains: war is spreading, crime increasing, immorality assuming giant proportions, misery, disease, and wrongdoing growing mightier day by day, while the forces that could and would stay these horrors, still wear the badge of slavery.