“We have rightly, though tardily, bestowed the suffrage upon her. That was an act which should have been performed years ago, but one which has been delayed by much of that unwieldy and unworkable machinery that clogs and hampers the operations of the Westminster Parliament. I refer to the numerous local affairs of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, which, as you know, I have frequently expressed as my opinion, might be more profitably, efficiently, and quickly disposed of in the separate countries named, leaving the time that is consumed here in attending to them free for the consideration of great Imperial and National social questions, which are, alas! and dangerously so, being pressed into the background. “The bestowal of the suffrage on woman is a practical acknowledgment by man that woman has a right to be considered as a being who can reason, and who can study humanity in its various phases, and act on her own responsibility. It is not for me here to seek for the causes which have hitherto led man to believe to the contrary. His belief, in a great measure, has been due to woman’s weak acceptance of his arbitrary laws; for I do not suppose it will be pretended by any one that the laws laid down for the sacrifice of woman’s freedom were the creation of a woman’s brain. But this weak acceptance of these arbitrary laws cannot fairly be ascribed entirely to the fault of woman. ‘Slavery in no form is natural;’ it is an artificial creation of man’s; and woman’s slavery cannot be taken as an exception to this maxim. She has, in point of fact, been subjected to bondage, a bondage which has, in a manner, become second nature to her, and which custom has taught her to regard as a part of the inevitable. “But if honourable gentlemen will believe me, Nature is stronger than custom, and more powerful than law. Nature is a force that cannot be repressed finally and absolutely. It is like an overwhelming torrent against which you may erect monster dykes, which you may dam up for a time, but all the while the waters are rising, and will find their level in the end. Through countless years woman has been repressed. Every human force and ingenuity of man have been employed to establish her subjection. From religion downwards it has been the cry ‘Women, submit to men!’ a cry which I may safely say was never originated by herself.