Two further events must be chronicled before closing the story of the year 1908. The first is the fight of the Scottish women graduates for the recognition of their claim to vote under the Scottish University Franchise which they carried right through to the House of Lords. Though they failed to establish their claim, they yet brought to light many valuable new facts in regard to the rights and privileges of their countrywomen in ancient times. One of their contentions was that the question as to whether they might vote should be decided according to the actual wording of the University Franchise Act and not according to the known, or supposed, intentions of Parliament, for that is the rule which the British Courts have agreed to be always the just and proper one to adopt. There was nothing in the words of the Act to prevent women graduates from voting on equal terms with men, and even if it were held that this had happened because when the Act was passed the legislature had not foreseen the possibility of there ever being women graduates, the right course to pursue (because it was the accepted course when such questions in regard to Acts of Parliament arose) was for the women to be allowed to vote until Parliament, if it chose to do so, should carry an amending statute. The graduates pointed out that this had been done in the case of the first woman who had graduated in medicine, in the Netherlands where, as in England, graduation carried with it the right to vote. This lady had claimed her right and not being allowed to exercise it had taken her case to the Courts. For technical reasons the case had been postponed and during the postponement the Legislature had brought in a repealing enactment to prevent women graduates voting and had succeeded in carrying it. The reason for the refusal of the English authorities to take this course is clearly apparent, for it would have been difficult indeed for our Parliament to carry such a repealing measure in the face of the tremendous Suffragette and Suffragist agitation. The second of these two important happenings and perhaps the most auspicious one of the whole year, was the granting of votes to women in Victoria where, after struggling for many years, the Suffragists had at length succeeded in inducing their Government to take the matter up and had secured their enfranchisement on November 18th, 1908. FOOTNOTES: [32] Miss Ogston acted upon her own initiative in using the dog whip, and her intention was not known to the committee of the W. S. P. U. who felt, however, that they could not condemn her for seeking to protect herself. She employed the whip as a protest, not against ejection, but against the unnecessary violence to which she herself and other women had been subjected. CHAPTER XIX JANUARY TO MARCH, 1909