Nothing is more certain than that we are about to free ourselves from the crass blindness of the nineteenth century in its great delusion that the wealth of a nation consists in the number of things it makes and possesses. Parenthood and childhood will shortly come to be recognized as the first concern of the State that is to continue, and whilst the birth-rate continues to fall, the honour paid to fathers and mothers will continue to rise. We shall become as wise in time as the Jews have been ever since we have record of them. We shall estimate the relative value of these things as well as if we were the kinds of people we call "Savages." Fatherhood will not be such an uncompensated sacrifice in those days, even apart from its inherent rewards. The point I am trying to make is that the legislation and the social changes here advocated as necessary in the interests of women, and indeed asserted to be their rights, do not involve any injury to men. This common delusion is a mere instance of the poisonous principle of politicians, notably fiscal politicians, and of many business men. Their belief is that what benefits Germany must hurt England, that what hurts Germany must benefit England, that all trade is a question of somebody scoring off another or being scored off. The idea that there are great games in which both sides stand to win, if they "play the game," is meaningless to them. That German prosperity can favour English prosperity, that true commerce is a mutual exchange for mutual benefit--these are notions obviously absurd to people who think on this horrible assumption which reigns unchallenged in a thousand columns of fiscal controversy every morning. And when these people turn to the question of legislation as between the sexes, they naturally assume that anything which promises to benefit women will injure men. The vote is thus regarded as a means of injuring men--necessarily, because it advantages women--and assuredly such people will suppose that any measures in the direction of granting what I here prefer to call the "rights of mothers" (leaving to one side the "rights of women"), necessarily involve a proportionate disadvantage to men. I deny it utterly: The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink Together, dwarfed or God-like, bond or free.