"Therefore, I think in appealing to you ungrudgingly to open your own feelings and bear your own part in a political crisis like this, we are making no inappropriate demand, but are beseeching you to fulfil the duties which belong to you, which so far from involving any departure from your character as women, are associated with the fulfilment of that character and the performance of those duties, the neglect of which would in future years be a source of pain and mortification, and the accomplishment of which would serve to gild your future years with sweet remembrances and to warrant you in hoping that each in your own place and sphere has raised your voice for justice, and has striven to mitigate the sorrows and misfortunes of mankind." In less ornate language Mr. Asquith, in January 1910, thanked the women of Fife for the aid they had given him and his cause during the election, and said that "their healthy influence on the masculine members of the community had had not a little to do with keeping things in a satisfactory condition." The organised political work of women has grown since 1884, and has become so valuable that none of the parties can afford to do without it or to alienate it. Short of the vote itself this is one of the most important political weapons which can possibly have been put into our hands. At the outset, while the women's political societies were still young, and were hardly conscious of their power, the women's suffrage movement benefited greatly by their existence. If the Women's Liberal Federation had existed in 1884, the 104 Liberals who voted against Mr. Woodall's amendment would have probably decided that honesty was the best policy. In 1892 Sir Albert Rollit introduced a Women's Suffrage Bill, as nearly as possible on the lines of the Conciliation Bill of 1910-11. Before the second reading great efforts were made by the Liberal party machine to secure a crushing defeat for this Bill on its second reading: a confidential circular was sent out to all Liberal candidates in the Home Counties advising them not to allow Liberal women to speak on their platforms lest they should advocate "female suffrage." In addition to this, Mr. Gladstone was induced to write a letter addressed to Mr. Samuel Smith, M.P., against the Bill, in which he departed from his previous view that the political work done by women would be quite consistent with womanly character and duties, and would "gild their future years with sweet remembrances." He now said that voting would, he feared, "trespass upon their delicacy, their purity, their refinement, the elevation of their whole nature."