Some women have always been in politics, and not done badly either. It was when we had the Lancastrian kings that it was said that kings were made by Act of Parliament--they ruled by means of Parliament. Then Henry VIII accepted the principle of the Lancastrians to rule by Parliament, but he used that principle in an entirely different way. He made Parliament the engine of his will, he pressed or frightened it into doing anything he wished. Under his guidance Parliament defied and crushed all other powers spiritual and temporal, and he did things which no king or Parliament had ever attempted to do, things unheard of and terrible. Then Elizabeth came along. It is true she scolded her Parliaments for meddling with matters with which, in her opinion, they had no concern, and more than once soundly rated the Speaker of the Commons, but she never carried her quarrels too far, and was able to end her disputes by clever compromise; in other words, she never let Parliament down, and that is what I don’t believe any wise woman will do, in spite of the fears of some of the men. Now why are we in politics? What is it all about? Something much bigger than ourselves. Schopenhauer was wrong in nearly everything he wrote about women--and he wrote a lot--but he was right in one thing. He said, in speaking of women, “The race is to her more than the individual,” and I believe that it is true. I feel somehow we do care about the race as a whole; our very natures makes us take a forward vision. There is no reason why women should look back. Mercifully, we have no political past; we have all the mistakes of one-sex legislation, with its appalling failures, to guide us. We should know what to avoid. It is no use blaming the men--we made them what they are--and now it is up to us to try and make ourselves--the makers of men--a little more responsible. We realise that no one sex can govern alone. I believe that one of the reasons why civilisation has failed so lamentably is that it has had one-sided government. Don’t let us make the mistake of ever allowing that to happen again. I can conceive of nothing worse than a man-governed world--except a woman-governed world--but I can see the combination of the two going forward, and making civilisation, more worthy of the name of civilisation based on Christianity, not on force--a civilisation based on justice and mercy. I feel men have a greater sense of justice, and we of mercy. They must borrow our mercy and we must use their justice.