There is this excuse for the men: first, that they are by nature slower than women, and are only now awakening to the fact that, while men’s lives have changed greatly during the past century, women’s lives have changed immensely more, and that something like a complete revolution has taken place in the education and industrial position of women, and they cannot be expected to be the same as they were before these changes; and, secondly, that unlimited power is more demoralising even than subjection. Where men are treating women as equally human, the sense of comradeship is growing. One of the most moving speeches made at Budapest, at the Congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in June 1913, was a very simple statement by Miss Jenny af Forselles, a Finnish Member of Parliament. She said that, in the great national sorrow and the terrible struggle with a less civilised nation, their solace and inspiration was the comradeship between the women and men. Those who heard her will not forget the quiet thrill of her aspiration, expressed in her Biblical, slightly archaic German—“_Wir wollen seyn ein einig Volk_,” and the hope it gave, that in some distant day the union of peoples might be a union of the whole _free_ people. I have refrained as much as possible from dogmatism about the true nature of Woman and about what women will do. I know some people confidently assert that women are better than men, and that women are going to perform miracles. Well, some of us think that the movement itself, now, is miraculous, and have had ample reward in the comradeship of men in the movement. “Divinity hath surely touched my heart; I have possessed more joy than earth can lend; I may attain what time shall never spend. Only let not my duller days destroy The memory of thy witness and my joy.” Our faith would be weak if it could be dashed by the human faults in women, and of women in the movement as well as all the other women. It is cowardice, merely, to turn from the complex, fascinating, troublesome, real woman to a vapid ideal, or a devitalised norm. We must understand the real women and the real men, and have faith in them. Fear and distrust are no leaders for brave folk. The prayer which the worker in human material must ever have at heart is, “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.” _Printed by MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, Edinburgh_ FOOTNOTES [1] The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies in twelve months raised, at headquarters and among its affiliated societies, £42,000. I have assumed that the Women’s Social and Political Union raised as much. It seems likely that if we add together all the other societies (thirty odd), and also reckon the immense amount of money spent in travelling and so forth by voluntary workers, the total of £100,000 is well within the mark. [2] _Realities and Ideals: The Work of Woman_, by Frederic Harrison, p. 125.