Let them do so by all means, but that elusive symbol in the division lobby cannot be ignored. Their idea, so long as it is protective of their best interests is legitimate: it will be impossible for them to take their proper share in politics so long as they are regarded as freaks, and, whether or no a time will ever come when a women’s party must of necessity arise, it would be foolish now to forestall necessity. A party crystallises common ideals, which, at this moment, the women of England have not got either by tradition or conviction. Yet the fact remains that women are women, and not men. Is it right, is it even possible, that this should be ignored or disregarded in politics, when it is patent,—usefully, inexorably, so—in all other social activities? With all respect to ladies who take another view, I submit that it is neither possible nor desirable: perhaps I may persuade them that my view, where it is not supported by plain facts, is not a fruit of masculine prejudice and does not aim at nullifying the good of their well-earned enfranchisement, but is really a greater tribute to the value of their appearance in politics than they seem ready to pay themselves. In all probability, men being more active, more politically ambitious and more in a position by their public activities to gain suffrages than women, the proportion of women to men among members of Parliament will always be small. For this very reason it seems important that this small proportion should get the best out of itself, which it will not do by disregarding its sex. Perhaps it is not the sex so much that matters as the special experience and outlook which are incidental to it. The woman’s point of view may not always be the most just or the most comprehensive, but it will always be valuable when clearly stated. A woman, even from her earliest years, learns to penetrate into recesses of life which defy the penetration of the less supple man: she sees into other minds from a different angle and, where the minds are women’s, from a much more advantageous one. In the ordinary course of life in England the woman’s path begins to diverge from the man’s immediately the confines of babyhood are passed, and, though women will be right to annex for themselves anything that is valuable in masculine upbringing and to press for complete equality of opportunity with men, it is hardly possible that the two paths will ever coincide. It is scarcely conceivable that the mind of a woman should ever take on so completely masculine a form that she will not, by feminine contacts and sympathies, have gathered some experiences beyond the reach of a man. I cannot see why political should differ from social life in this respect. Each of a normal married couple brings some special contribution to the common household: every sensible man leaves some things to his wife as she leaves others to him: and though members of Parliament cannot so absolutely divide the range of their activities,